


The Thousandth and the First

by ageless_aislynn



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M, ReverseSnow, Snowells, Snowells Week 2019, Snowthawne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2020-05-16 09:05:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 22,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19315012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ageless_aislynn/pseuds/ageless_aislynn
Summary: Caitlin meets her soulmate. Fortunately, she's got an antidote for that. ForSnowells Week 2019- Day 6, prompt: Year 2, Anti-Soulmarked/Soulmarked





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have literally been trying to write this story since the original prompt in 2016, lol! This year, it wouldn't leave me alone (and ended up crowding out the other prompt fills I intended to do *blush*). ;) As it turned out, it also wanted to run much too long to be a one-shot, so hence, there should be 2 other chapters to follow. Unless it should end up condensing into just one more or need to get expanded out into 4 total, we'll see when we get there. I anticipate the next chapter to be ready in a few days, RL permitting. ;) 
> 
> This also has a home at [Tumblr](https://ageless-aislynn.tumblr.com/post/185767478975/the-thousandth-and-the-first-agelessaislynn). If you read, I hope you enjoy! :D ♥
> 
> November 2, 2019: In case anybody is still checking on this (or comes across it for the first time) and might be wondering if it's been abandoned, no, it hasn't. The second chapter is completed but I'm waiting to post until Chapters 3, 4 and 5 (and 6 ;) ) are finished as well, so I can post the entire fic in a fairly short time. I won't give a definite time frame for it but "soon" should hopefully cover it. Thank you for your patience. I'll explain a bit more in the Ch2 notes.
> 
> December 3, 2019: All 6 chapters are finished but need some **serious** love and affection before they're ready to be posted. Expect to see them in January! *fingers crossed* Hope you'll enjoy seeing where all this goes. I had fun writing it. ;)
> 
> January 27, 2020: Editing has been a **lot** more involved than I expected but is still in progress. We've expanded out to 7 chapters now, so lets see if that solves the problem! *fingers crossed* I'm feeling optimistic about February! ;) Much love to anybody who still checks on this or to anybody finding it for the first time. *hugs* ♥♥♥
> 
> February 10, 2020: *slapping self across face with each word* Stop...adding...more...chapters! ;) I just opted to break the super-sized chapter 5 into 2 more regular sized chapters. It flows a lot better but dang, this story needs to end here somewhere, c'mon, muse! :P ;) Still planning on resuming this month! :D ♥♥♥

Since Ronnie's death, Caitlin kept the soulmark on the inside of her left wrist covered with a widow's band. Of course, it was common for people to not want to see the once-bright lines now turned black from the passing of their soulmate. People who'd known her from before might've always found it strange that she and Ronnie always kept their wrists covered, but probably just chalked it up to choosing to keep it a private thing between the two of them.

Cisco knew, of course, because he always knew _everything_ , even when she didn't exactly intend for him to. So he was the only one who didn't look surprised when the plain black bracelet cuff caught on the corner of the desk in a freak moment of perfect physics and the clasp broke, sending it scattering in two pieces.

"Cait... Oh. _Oh_ , you have a soulmark, how cool!" Barry said, deftly snagging one half of the thin metal cuff in mid-air while the other skidded across the floor. "I didn't know you and R-- Oh."

The last _oh_ made it clear his brain had tardily caught up to his mouth.

"Um, yeah," she said. Covering the dark, delicate blue lines with her opposite hand was an automatic response. Dark soulmarks had never been activated, representing soulmates never found. Ronnie hadn't had a mark at all, though he had always followed her lead and kept his left wrist covered with _something_ , so his lack of mark didn't contrast with her unactivated one.

She let her hair fall forward, shielding the illogical burn of her cheeks. _There's nothing to be ashamed of,_ she thought, not for the first or even thousandth time. _Just because we weren't each other's soulmates, it doesn't make what we had mean anything less._

But, though soulmarks were becoming more and more common, they still were highly romanticized. Living your life with a dark mark, never finding your soulmate, was considered a tragedy, no matter how happy your life had actually been. Ronnie had always emphatically said that he _had_ found his soulmate because no glorified birthmark was going to tell him anything else.

"Cait, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, you know." Barry gave a roll of one hand, a helpless gesture of both apology and dismay.

Her smile felt brittle and blindingly fake but it was the best she could manage as she grabbed a random folder off of her desk. "Of course. Don't worry about it. I have to go, I've got work to do."

"Oh, sure, of course," he said quickly and pressed the half of her bracelet into the palm of her hand, giving her fingers a brief squeeze.

She was almost out the door when Dr. Wells' voice stopped her.

"Dr. Snow? I believe this is yours?"

He was holding out the other part of the cuff where it had come to a stop near his motorized wheelchair. His expression was blank, the face he wore when emotions were too troubling for him to process. 

_Of course,_ she thought as she doubled back. How many times had she seen pictures of Harrison and Tess together, smiling, their identical triangular soulmarks blazing like green fire inside their wrists? Now Dr. Wells kept his left wrist covered by a black widower's band, just like she did.

Would it be harder to look at a blackened mark and know that your soulmate was dead? It would have to be.

"Thank you, Dr. Wells," she said quietly, taking the cuff from him. To her surprise, he briefly clasped her hand and gave a short nod. She expected something like that from Barry but it was practically a full-body hug coming from the reserved man.

"I can give you the name of someone who can fix it," he said. 

She nodded in thanks but he was already turning his chair away.

***

"Caitlin, you're too close. You need to get out of there!"

Cisco's panicked cry buzzed in her ear, making her wince from the feedback. "I can't leave," she said through gritted teeth. "Somebody's got to set off the pulse if we want to stop this guy."

The van rocked as a sonic blast seemed to agree with her statement.

"Let Barry handle him. He's got this," Cisco insisted and _his_ statement was punctuated by another thud to the van. She looked up to see the back of Barry sliding slowly down the windshield and then out of view. Beyond, the metahuman was just a dot at the end of the street. But a dot that was quickly growing larger by the moment.

"He's in range, I'm detonating the device," she said. "Tell... tell everyone I don't regret anything."

"Caitlin!"

Several sounds blurred into one: Cisco's voice, the slam of her hand striking the detonator button and a buzz of rushing air. Then the pulse blew and everything went dark.

Consciousness crept back, followed by a wave of sickness and a pounding in her head. Disorientated, she flailed for a moment before realizing she was curled on her side on a bed.

"Easy," a soft voice said, a warm hand brushing the hair back from her face. 

She squinted, her vision swimming in and out of focus, and when she tried to ask what had happened, all that came out was a jumble of sounds.

"Don't be afraid, it's just a side effect from being caught in the edge of the blast. You'll be fine."

The voice sounded wrong somehow but she couldn't parse the reason. Her fingers curled helplessly into fists into a thick surface and she recognized the comforter on her bed. She was in her own room.

"Just rest," the voice urged and it must've seemed like a good idea because her mind let go and she slipped away once more.

***

By the time she woke and made her way back to S.T.A.R. Labs again, she felt like she had the mother of all hangovers but at least seemed to have her faculties back in better working order. She was met by Cisco with a tackle-hug, by Barry with an only slightly more restrained embrace and by Harrison with stony silence.

"Dr. Wells," she said when she couldn't stand his frosty stare any longer.

"That was stupid," he said, pronouncing each word distinctly as if wanting to make sure she couldn't possibly misunderstand. "And you're many things, Dr. Snow, but stupid shouldn't be one of them."

"Dr. Wells," Barry interjected. "That's a little harsh. Caitlin was just trying to--"

"Get herself killed? She almost did that quite efficiently." Harrison gave her another cold glance, then turned his wheelchair away.

Caitlin gaped, not quite expecting the strength of his reaction, but tried to recover, turning to her other friends. "Ah, thanks, Barry, for getting me out of there. I owe you."

Barry's brows knitted together. "Uh, it wasn't me, Cait. I mean, I _tried_ , don't get me wrong, but by the time I got into the van, you were gone. We had no idea what happened to you."

"You're a meta, aren't you?" Cisco said with undisguised glee, his voice going sing-song. "You're a meta who can transport. Because transporting would be an _awesome_ superpower, girl! Give me, like, ten seconds and I'll have you killer codename!"

Caitlin shook her head. "It wasn't me. Somebody grabbed me and the next thing I knew, I was in my room. I thought it had to be Barry because of the speed and the... Oh, of course, he was disguising his voice through vibration."

"Why would Barry disguise his voice?" Cisco asked, frowning.

"He wouldn't."

The three of them turned towards Harrison who had spoken without looking back at them.

"I know of only one other speedster in town, don't you?" he continued.

Barry straightened. "Why would the Reverse Flash get involved? Why would he save Caitlin?"

Harrison finally turned, leveling a direct, almost incriminating gaze straight at her. "Why, indeed?"

Even Cisco was left speechless at that.

***

Caitlin was exceedingly thankful that Dr. Wells seemed back to normal the next day and life returned to the _Wait, who is this metahuman and what is his or her power and how do we stop them when they inevitably do something bad?_ normal that it had fallen into over the past few months.

Then one evening Caitlin entered her home and there was a moment when she _knew_. Her hand bypassed the light switch as she moved through the entryway and she quietly slid open the shallow drawer of her hall table, fingers groping with silent certainty then confounded at closing on nothing.

She abandoned the plan and turned, intending to head back for the front door, but then heard a distinctive whoosh. She'd been around Barry too long not to recognize the sound of a speedster in motion. But Barry's eyes certainly did not glow red in darkness.

A moment later, the light switched on, leaving her blinking in dismay at the man in the yellow suit standing at the other end of the hallway.

"Good evening, Caitlin," he said in his distorted voice. His feature were a blur, concealed not only by his mask but by motion too quick for her eye to distinguish.

She ran for the door which was only a few steps behind her, knowing it was a futile gesture even before she crashed full-bore into his chest. Her hair whipped in a blinding riot from the speed of him passing her. Even still, she struck out hard, windmilling both arms in order to break his hold.

"Caitlin," he tsked indulgently. "That might work in your self-defense class but I'm--"

She stomped the insole of his foot and then kneed him squarely in the groin. Speedster healing or not, she'd yet to find any man who was completely immune to that combination. He let go, doubling over with a startled groan, and she dove back for the still-open drawer of her hallway table.

"I already took care of your taser," he said, his distorted voice sounding like it was coming through gritted teeth.

"But not my backup," she responded, ripping it free from its hiding spot and promptly firing it into him.

Even as the lightning crackled across his yellow suit, she dropped the weapon and darted into the kitchen.

"Caitlin," he said firmly, storming through the door in time for her to blast him with her fire extinguisher.

He coughed, choking out, "That's not cold enough to stop me."

"I know," she said and flipped the switch that activated the emergency super-cold spray that Cisco had installed for her as a precaution.

He made an incoherent noise and vanished back through the doorway in a shower of ice crystals. But unfortunately he returned back in the next blink, knocking the extinguisher from her hand. "I'm trying to not scare you!" he roared.

"You broke into my home. What part of that isn't supposed to scare me?" she fired back, turning in a last ditch effort and reaching for the knife block on the counter.

"No, no knives!" he snapped and grabbed her around the waist, pulling her back against his chest and pinning her arms to her sides.

Before she could bring her feet up and try to use the counter for leverage, he sped them to the middle of the living room, lifting her up so that her feet could only kick ineffectually against his shins.

"I'm not here to hurt you. Please, just calm down." He was clearly trying to sound reassuring instead of irritated.

"What do you want?" she growled out but let her ineffectual struggling stop until she was hanging in mid-air, pressed backwards against his chest.

"I wanted to see if you were all right," he said, gradually lowering her so her feet touched the floor again. "Do you have any idea what that blast would've done to you?"

He sounded annoyed, as if she had taken a foolish chance on a whim with no concept of the consequences.

His annoyance annoyed _her._ "What does it matter to you?"

He huffed in frustration and his grip loosened minutely. She couldn't help herself, she stomped his insole again and tried to yank free.

He immediately tightened his hold, cursing loudly in her ear. "Would you _stop_ that? I can heal broken bones in my feet but that doesn't mean they don't hurt. Look, pull up my sleeve."

It was a weird enough request that she stopped struggling. "Why?"

"Just do it. Please." The last word was clearly an after-thought. He carefully adjusted his hold around her waist so his left arm was free. "Go on. Do it now."

She hesitated long enough that he repeated it again, but this time in a deeper timbre. The distortion made it a monster's voice. " _Now_ , Caitlin."

It spooked her into putting her fingers onto his wrist but she could only make use of her left hand, her right arm still trapped helplessly beneath his. Even still, she found the nearly invisible seam between the sleeve and the gloves and gave it a tug.

"Caitlin," he warned.

"It's too tight," she said. "I can't pull it up like this."

He gave a wordless growl.

"Try it yourself," she invited.

He adjusted his hold, clearly expecting her to try something else as he pinned her back against him and gave his sleeve a tug. It didn't move.

"Okay, so I like snug tailoring," he muttered and gave a harder jerk that rolled the cuff back.

In the next breath, it was as if a bomb went off. Caitlin found herself down on her carpet, curled on her side, blinded by the pulsating glare of the mark on her left wrist, too bright to be hardly even dampened by the widow's band. She tried to cover it with her hand but it still shone through her fingers, the most beautiful sapphire blue she'd ever imagined.

The man in the yellow suit had also been knocked off of his feet. Sapphire blue blazed from his wrist, pulsing in time with her own mark.

"No," she muttered, then said it louder. "No, no, no. This isn't happening. _You_... you can't be..."

He chuckled a bit breathily, like he'd been punched in the gut. "If you had _any_ idea how far I've traveled just to end up finding you here and now, in this place..."

A wave of longing swept over her. She felt touch-starved, like her skin itself was trying to pull towards him. That bare strip of arm showing where his sleeve was rolled back looked like an oasis after wandering lost for too many days in a searing desert.

"Caitlin," he said, his voice sounding wondrous, like he was seeing her for the first time.

"I've got an antidote," she gasped out, scrambling to her feet and staggering back towards the kitchen. "I can cure this."

She thought he might superspeed ahead to try and stop her but when she glanced back, he was still on the floor.

"You can... cure yourself of me?" he said, sounding surprisingly forlorn.

An overwhelming desire to comfort him made her stagger to a halt. Then she gritted her teeth and made herself keep going. _You knew this might happen,_ she thought. _That's why you were ready for this. You're ready for this._

But now that it had happened, she didn't feel ready at all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So what **do** you do if you're a hero who finds yourself with a soulmate who's a villain? Well, curiosity _is_ the foundation of good science, right? Note: We earn the mature rating in this chapter. ;)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annnd here we go at last! The fic is now ready to be posted on a Thurs - Sat - Tues schedule, which should take about 2 and -ish ;) weeks to get us to the *drum-roll* final chapter. 
> 
> Sorry to have been delayed so long but unfortunately real life struck me a pretty hard blow in 2019. Chapter 2 was ready to be posted last July but my mom unexpectedly died that morning, so you can imagine that writing became one of the last things on my mind. Pretty much **everything** became the last thing on my mind for a long time, honestly. It wasn't until the end of the year that I even began thinking about writing again. Then it was like focusing on this story became something that helped me while I was trying to pull the pieces back together. It's cliche, I know, but my mom was also my best friend and it's still so hard to get through every day. But I'm trying. Finishing this fic was something that I really wanted to finally do. I don't know why but this one just means something to me. It's the longest multi-chapter fic I've written so far in any fandom. 
> 
> So if you've been waiting since back when Chapter 1 went up, my thanks for coming back. I appreciate you a **lot** for that. *hugs* If you're new here, I'm super glad for you to be here, too! Hopefully you've just come from ch1 and are ready to embark on this ride with Caitlin and Eobard. I hope you enjoy! ♥♥♥

Caitlin staggered into the kitchen, grasping almost blindly for the small, temperature-controlled refrigerator where she kept the vial that would make these terrible feelings go away.

She had just set it on the counter and was pulling a syringe from the nearby drawer when she knew he was standing behind her.

Anticipating a superspeeded motion to break the vial, she actually flinched when all he did was speak. 

"Why did you create an antidote to your soulmark?" His distorted voice managed to sound surprisingly mild. "You had no way to know about me until tonight."

She turned, finding him in the doorway several feet away. "I was married to a man who didn't have a soulmark," she said. "I loved him and we were happy. I could've run into some stranger on the street and lost everything. I didn't want my _choice_ to be superseded by..."

"Fate?" he suggested when she paused.

"A chemical reaction," she said.

"But now that you're alone, why keep the antidote?" At the sharp look she gave him, he spread his hands slightly. "There's no sign that anybody else lives here and you're not wearing a ring. It's not a hard conclusion to draw."

She automatically rubbed her bare finger. It had taken a long time to get to the point where she could take her ring off. Right now, it just felt like a betrayal.

"My husband died," she said tightly. "I kept the antidote because... I don't know why. I just did."

He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Okay."

"Okay?" she repeated, unsure.

"Okay, I understand your reasoning. I'm assuming it will cause my mark to go black at the same time?"

She blinked. "Um, yes, I would think so. It should react as if... my mark has been canceled out." _As if I'd died._ The antidote wouldn't erase the soulmarks, it would simply give them both the mark of dead soulmates.

He nodded. "All right, then. Proceed."

Slowly picking up the syringe, she couldn't help but wait for him to make a move to stop her, despite his words. "Why are you for this?"

He scoffed. "Do you think I want to be in love with a _hero_? This is a terrible development when it comes to my criminal career."

"That makes sense, I suppose," she murmured, her eyebrows bobbing slightly as she turned back to the counter. Her fingers closed around the vial and the motion brought her gaze back to her glowing soulmark as it glared accusingly at her. Sweat broke out along her forehead and a deep sense of dread filled her chest.

"Do you need help?" he asked as she wavered. "Or is it something else?"

"This will work on an active soulmark," she said as if she were lecturing to the syringe and vial in her hands. "It doesn't matter how long it's been active. For a few minutes. For a... night."

 _What are you doing?_ The voice of logic spoke sternly in her head but the light from the soulmark caused the volume to lower considerably.

 _I'm a scientist,_ she rebutted shakily. _Isn't it a waste to not explore this before I permanently shut it down?_

In a blink, he was directly behind her, close enough that she could feel the heat his vibration generated. He put a hand on the counter next to hers, the one holding the vial, but didn't make a single point of physical contact, though both of their marks glowed brighter from their close proximity.

"Are we curious about what it's like between soulmates, Dr. Snow?" he said and the pitch of his distorted voice dropped along her spine in a phantom caress. "Because I admit that I am."

"Curiosity is the foundation of good science," she said, then winced mentally at the fact she was basically asking the Reverse Flash to bed her _for science_. He chuckled.

"One night, then?" he asked softly. "You take the antidote tomorrow and we go on our separate ways?"

"Yes," she said and put away the vial and syringe with shaking hands. "I have a condition, though."

"What's that?" He still was shadowing her without touching. The hair along the nape of her neck stood up, lightning charging beneath her skin.

"I don't want to know who you are." Her voice was breathless but the words were resolute.

That surprised him into drawing back slightly. "I'd think you'd be happy to take that little tidbit back to your team," he said a little too nonchalantly.

"If I find out your identity some other way, then it's fair game. But not like this. Not because of the soulmark. It's not right."

"What's your proposition, then? Leave the mask and suit on? Because I have to tell you... the suit has provisions for that."

That made her just _look_ at him and, even though the distortion, his grin was evident.

 _Does he have a sense of humor?_ she wondered, startled. He was perilously close to feeling like an actual human being -- well, technically a metahuman being. But someone who was complex and complicated, not just _the man in the yellow suit_ or _the meta who killed Nora Allen._ The idea that he was a _person_ was a bit daunting.

"Just simply turning off the light should suffice," she said, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. The next thing she knew, she had been moved from the kitchen and was standing next to her bed.

"How about something like this?" he asked from across the room and she blinked against the sudden darkness. Then he turned on the light in the bathroom and pulled the door mostly closed, allowing the barest sliver of illumination in. It was enough to see silhouettes but not details.

"That works," she said and put her hands up to the first button on her shirt.

"There's something I'd like to request as well."

Her fingers paused. "What?"

"I want you to say my name. My real name. You'll know when." He gave a slight, sour chuckle. "Don't worry. It won't violate _your_ condition. You won't recognize it."

It would've been a little hypocritical to ask something so drastic of him and not allow him to ask something relatively minor in return. "All right. What is it?"

"Eobard."

She canted her head slightly. "That's an interesting name."

"Glad you think so."

In a whoosh, he was a step in front of her. The blue mark on his wrist glowed with its own light, enough to catch the edges of his suit... if it would've still been on.

"Would you care for some help?" he asked. This close, the red of his eyes should've been quite noticeable but he must've only been using the vibration to continue to distort his voice, not to disguise his face.

"Can you do that without ripping my arms off?" she returned, trying to sound unaffected but the soulmark was tugging insistently at her, making it hard to think.

She was briefly caught in a whirlwind, divested of her clothing down to her bra and panties.

"Apparently, yes, I can," he said and leaned a little closer to whisper. "I thought I'd take the rest of it off a little more leisurely, if that's okay with you?"

His nearness made her dizzy, made her heart pound and the breath catch in her throat. The need to _touch him_ was urgent, suffocating. "Not too leisurely," she gasped and reached out blindly to place her palms against his chest.

Bare skin came in contact with bare skin and the next thing she knew, they were kissing in a frenzy. Somewhere along the way, her lingerie vanished and she didn't know which of them had torn it off. Her back hit the bed and his hands gripped her thighs, trembling from raw desire, not speedster vibration.

"Wait," she said as his mouth worked its way down her stomach. "Normally, that's... That's awesome. But right now, can we just...?"

"Whatever you want," he murmured. 

"Do you have...?" she started to say when he vanished and returned in an instant. Foil ripped.

"I'm practically a Boy Scout, Dr. Snow," he growled playfully. "Always prepared."

She wanted to respond to that but he was already pressing her thighs wider. Her legs instinctively wrapped around him, helping to pull him in, and they both groaned as he slid home like a circuit slamming shut.

They bumped together awkwardly a few times, trying to figure each other's rhythm. It was what Caitlin disliked about first times in general and had always turned her away from anything resembling a one-night stand. But the sheer strength of _want_ drove her on, more than making up for any potential self-consciousness.

She couldn't get enough of him, hands sliding over his feverishly hot skin. Was that a speedster thing or something to do with the soulmark itself? Her fingers sank into his hair -- longer than she expected, a bit of curl, _no_ , she didn't want to note details, nothing that might make him recognizable in the cold light of day. She wanted him faceless, unknown, not somebody she could picture cursing as he stubbed his toe or blowing on a too-hot cup of coffee or scrolling through his phone while he stood in some endless line. She didn't want him to be _real_ like that.

He had no such restraints. He seemed to want to chart every line and curve of her entire body, his fingers tangling in her hair, smoothing over her ribs, tracing her hipbones, even stroking her calf down to her ankle as if trying to sear every detail into his mind.

Energy build up with an audible static crackle, surged up and down her spine at the same time, and the tight knot of dizzying pleasure twisting within her abruptly burst. She _wailed_. 

He held on like they were in danger of being thrown to opposite sides of the room, picking up speed until he grunted harshly, emptying into her in pulses that sent electrical charges across his body, discharging into her at every point of contact in a thousand tiny, shivering microbursts.

For a moment, his head sagged to her shoulder and he seemed too dazzled to do anything else. She mindlessly stroked his back -- he was fit and lean, a runner's physique, no doubt, maybe thinner than he looked in the bulk of the suit but still surprisingly muscular -- _no, stop._

He gently pulled free, moving to dispose of the condom before returning to the bed, flopping bonelessly onto his back next to her. "That... was not my best effort. Sorry."

She chuckled breathlessly. "I don't honestly think I could've stood your best effort, then. My head almost exploded as it was."

"I _know_ ," he said in a conspiratorial tone. "I thought I was about to inadvertently start traveling through time and that was going to be rather inconvenient at the moment."

That elicited a full-on giggle. She started to curl into his arms, her head on his chest, but did a quick turn the other way as soon as she realized it.

The moment of friendly camaraderie dissipated and he made a noise that was almost-but-not-quite a sigh. 

The longer the silence stretched, the more wretched she felt. The sheer _rudeness_ of her action nagged at her until she finally inched backwards just a bit. Then a bit more. And again until her back touched his arm in a mute peace offering.

He waited a few beats before finally asking, "Can I stay the night?"

She blinked, not having expected that. "Okay," she agreed and with that he turned and spooned gently around her.

His arm draped over her side, his hand resting lightly against her stomach. She automatically threaded her fingers through his and this time didn’t pull away when her brain tardily caught up with her actions.

"Okay," he echoed.

She gradually relaxed towards sleep until a thought jolted her back awake. "Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot when it was, um, _time_ , I was supposed to say your name."

"Say it now," he suggested softly.

"Eobard."

He made a wordless noise of contentment. "No apology needed. This is exactly the right time." 

She was still thinking about that when she drifted off.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caitlin quickly discovers that having the Reverse Flash as your soulmate makes for an... interesting relationship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading! The mature rating is still in (the Speed) force. :P ;) Next chapter will be here on Tuesday! :D

"You okay, Cait?"

Barry's concerned voice came to her as she rubbed her temples wearily.

"Yeah," she said, squinting up at him and attempting a smile. "Just have a killer headache."

"Why don't you go on home?" he said kindly. "I mean, we already have Slow Shock safely stowed away so--"

"Lot of alliteration going on there," Cisco piped up while scowling over the glittering silver orbs on his desk. " _Why_ can I not figure out how these stupidly simple things work?"

"I'm okay," Caitlin told Barry, trying to look a little less pained. "I can help with the--"

"Go home."

Harrison Wells' voice cut curtly through her words. She turned as he passed behind her in his motorized chair without pausing to glance her way.

"Really, Dr. Wells, I'm fine," she said to his back. 

"I mean, honestly, it looks like he's got two paperclips stuck together with gum in here or something," Cisco continued on muttering. "Yet somehow he can even freeze Barry in place for thirty seconds with 'em? Ugh, Slow Shock's balls can suck my… Wait, that's coming out wrong. You know what I mean."

"Probably something you ate disagreed with you," Harrison said in an unsympathetic tone. 

She blinked. For a moment, she could've sworn he said something she _took_ disagreed with her.

Barry gave the older man a quizzical look at his especially sharp manner but put a gentle hand on Caitlin's shoulder. "We'll call if there's something we need, promise."

"Mr. Allen, a moment of your time?" Harrison said brusquely and turned his chair so harshly that something within it groaned. He exited the room, practically leaving smoke in his wake.

Barry leaned closer with a humorously exaggerated _yikes_ expression, murmuring, "Seriously, Cait, just get out while you can. Hopefully _everybody_ will feel better tomorrow."

More than a little stung by Dr. Wells' unexpected coldness, she found herself nodding. "All right, then," she said. "I'll go home and rest."

***

The sound of a speedster phasing through a solid surface brought Caitlin jolting awake on her couch.

"I've had the most _awful_ headache all day," the man in the yellow suit said conversationally in his distorted voice.

"What?" she said, still a bit groggy.

"A headache," he repeated. "Which is odd for me. Speedster healing and all of that. I thought it was probably a side-effect from the soulmark terminating. So imagine my surprise when…"

He rolled his cuff back and the soulmark blazed to life at his wrist. Brilliant blue flared beneath the band at her wrist as well and it was like she suddenly remembered how to breathe. Air filled her lungs in a rush and the last persistent thump of her headache vanished.

She sat up, stunned at how much better she felt in a matter of seconds. "Why would we get headaches from our soulmarks?"

"Not from them," he corrected. "From being separated so soon after they were activated. There's a reason why they call the days after soulmates meet a 'honeymoon.' Apparently, there's a consequence from going against the mark's pull when it's so new."

He was suddenly kneeling in front of her, slipping the widow's band from her wrist. "Did the antidote fail?" he asked, stripping off his gloves in a blur of motion before cradling her forearm and tracing a wide circle around her mark with the tip of his index finger.

She shivered at the unexpected sensation and he made a pleased noise. His finger continued to move, tightening the concentric circles with each feathery pass, coming close to but never quite touching the delicate blue lines. 

He paused, tilting his head at her inquiringly and she realized he'd asked a question.

"The antidote didn't fail," she said and gasped as he bracketed the soulmark with his thumb as well, rubbing back and forth, back and forth, back and forth but never quite touching the sapphire blue lines.

Energy shimmered like a heat wave beneath her skin, blossoming from her wrist, up her arm, across her chest then down to pool between her thighs like a second heartbeat. He leaned down and blew across the soulmark, as if fogging a mirror, and that pulse began to throb. Since the skin of her soulmark had never had any different sensitivity than that around it, it was a revelation.

"So, then…?" he murmured. "What happened?"

"I didn't…take it," she said breathlessly and reached out to grip his shoulder as he breathed across the soulmark again, needing something to ground herself. Her legs squeezed together restlessly.

"Why not?"

She opened her mouth a few times but no words came. She had stood there that morning, staring at the small refrigerator that held the antidote, unable to open the door and remove the vial. Logically, she knew she should. Even _he_ had said she should. One night, that was all she needed, right?

But she couldn't open the door.

She shook her head, not able to explain it to him now anymore than she'd been able to explain it to herself earlier.

He adjusted the way he was holding her arm, so that when he leaned down again, it turned his face away from her. She realized why when the soft noise of vibration ceased, indicating he'd stopped concealing his identity.

He kissed the soulmark itself, a brief, chaste brush of lips that brought her arching up from the couch with a spluttered nonsense word. He chuckled and slowly licked a stripe across the blue lines. Her fingernails dug hard into his shoulder, putting the durability of his suit to the test.

Then he… He…

She'd read a thousand torrid romance books in her teenage years -- for research, or so she used to tell herself -- that had used the rather florid phrase describing the hero "making love with his mouth" to some part of the heroine. It had always seemed a bit ridiculous to her but, well, that seemed to be _exactly_ what he was doing to her soulmark.

His tongue swirled against her flesh, his lips pressed and dragged and devoured in the best of ways, gentle, fast, slow, powerful. Pleasure built, her body thrashed and bucked to the point he slung his arm across her to keep her from writhing to the floor. 

"Eobard," she moaned, half-plea, half-command, and he _sucked_ on the soulmark. The energy flared like a supernova, whiting out her vision briefly, as she convulsed through the most spectacular, unconventional orgasm of her entire life.

She gradually floated back to herself, finding him watching her, his features once more blurred but even still she was fairly certain there was a self-satisfied smile on his face.

"I didn't know that was possible," she said when her breath came back.

"They've been holding out in the soulmate's handbook, that's for sure," he said.

"Do you think…?" Shyness inexplicably tangled her tongue.

"What?" he prompted.

"Do you think your soulmark reacts the same as mine?" She looked down to where his arm was casually resting across her thighs, the mark on his inner wrist kept from making direct skin contact by the fabric of her comfortable leggings.

He turned his arm so that the mark showed, gleaming sapphire blue. "Want to find out?"

"Yes," she said and it surprised her how much she meant it.

"Still don't want to know?" He gestured at his concealed face.

"Not yet," she said softly and he nodded.

Standing in a smooth motion, he picked her up bridal style and carried her towards the darkened bedroom. He didn't use his speed; he walked as if he had all of the time in the world. Maybe he just liked having her in his arms. Either way, she curled comfortably against his chest and enjoyed the ride.

***

The rest of the night provided Caitlin with three very noteworthy facts of interest:

His soulmark did, indeed, react the same.

A speedster's healing ability created a remarkably fast refractory period.

He could selectively vibrate any part of his body that he wanted to.

***

Humming under her breath, Caitlin approached her front door, key in hand. It had been a good day, with only one meta trying to pull a series of very inept bank robberies. It had been almost… cute. Everybody else had taken the rest of the day off but she, still feeling guilty for missing a day's work from the unexpected soulmark-induced headache, had opted to stay and catch up on a few things. Working alone at S.T.A.R. Labs had felt odd at first but, when all was said and done, she'd felt quite virtuous for having resisted the call to take another early day.

As she opened the door, two distinct smells struck her: something tasty, like lasagna, immediately overpowered by the scent of char and smoke. She hurried into her kitchen and found a disaster of blackened pots and pans in the sink, all smoldering with unidentifiable remains burned into them. Her fire extinguisher sat on the floor, clearly having been recently used, and all of the windows were open.

"I can explain," Eobard said from behind her.

She turned and he gestured as if about to make a profound point.

"I… can't cook. At all. Clearly."

Despite the mess, a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. She'd never imagined that the man in the yellow suit could look quite so flummoxed.

"I'll replace everything, obviously," he went on. "And I'll take care of the mess."

Her hair blew into her eyes from superspeeded motion and when she was able to see again, her kitchen was tidy and sparkling clean.

He exhaled heavily. "However, that leaves the question of dinner."

She pulled her phone from her purse. "How do you feel about pizza?"

"Right now, quite good," he admitted. She was learning to read his blurred features enough now to detect gratitude that she hadn't mocked him for his rather spectacular culinary failure.

Before the order arrived, she discovered that he'd already set an elegant table with her finest tableware and with a tall set of candles in gold holders adorned with in red lightning bolts. The later of which were decisively _not_ hers. A plethora of tiny, metallic red and gold leaves were strewn elegantly on the tabletop as well.

"I can put this all back," he offered, sounding slightly embarrassed.

"No, leave it," she said. "There's no law against mixing pizza with fine dining, is there?"

"Well, if there is, it turns out that I'm a lawbreaker," he returned with a flourish of one hand.

So they had their first official sit-down meal together in that unconventional fashion. Considering they seemed to be tentatively forming an unconventional relationship, Caitlin thought it was fairly fitting.

Initially, she thought she would have to release him from her request to conceal his identity but he proved quite able to match the vibration of his mouth with that of his hand and he ate as if it were no issue at all.

 _I'm going to have to eventually come to grips with knowing who he is,_ she thought and, in that vein, impulsively asked, "Where are you from?"

She felt him raise an eyebrow at that. But all he said was, "The future."

"Yes and…?" she prompted but he merely took another bite of pizza.

While she tried to figure out if she'd somehow deeply offended him, he finally said, "You can't have it both ways, Caitlin. If you want to know about me, then know about me. That includes my face and my voice. You may have figured out by now that I'm rather all-or-nothing."

She thought about it, then finally said, "That's fair. So, what are we going to talk about?"

"You could tell me about your day," he offered.

"We caught a meta bank robber and…" she started, then trailed off.

_Wait, how much should I tell him? How much does he know about how we operate, our procedures, where we take the metas after we capture them?_

"You don't want to give away your team's secrets," he said. "I understand. So, no shop talk. Did you see the game this weekend?"

A crease appeared between her brows. "Which one?"

"Any of them."

"You're a sports fan?" She tried to imagine him lounging in front of the television, eating nachos and cheering on his favorites, all while wearing his yellow suit.

"Not really. I'm mainly interested in track and field."

As soon as she realized the joke, she hid a smile behind her slice of pizza. "Is that so?"

"Did you play sports when you were young or did you mainly stick to intellectual pursuits?"

"We can talk about me but not you?"

"I can see your face."

Her mouth twisted briefly in a _touché_ expression. "I actually did like to run track. I certainly wasn't in _your_ league, though."

"Maybe I could take you for a run? Let you see what it's like to truly go fast."

She caught herself a split second before she opened her mouth to say it. Distortion briefly shivered over his entire body.

"Ah, but you've been carried by a speedster before, haven't you? Him." He put what remained of his piece of pizza down onto the plate with great precision before resting his hands on the table. The silverware buzzed as vibration rattled through the wood and she had to make a grab for the nearest lit candle, catching it before it tipped over.

"I'm faster."

The way he said it, it wasn't a simple declaration. It was edged in something sharp, something fanatical, and it made the hair stand up at the nape of her neck. For the first time in a while, she remembered that she was casually eating pizza with the man who had killed Barry's mom.

"Does it matter who's faster?" she asked softly.

"It matters!" He was on his feet in an instant, pacing back and forth a few times at normal speed and then he was gone in a blast that blew out the candles and flipped over both of their plates. Tiny red and gold leaves rained around her in a brief, glittery storm.

She sat there, stunned, for a long moment, then eventually got up and cleared the table. For the entire rest of the night, she expected him to come back. 

He didn't.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caitlin and Eobard give it another try. Caitlin ponders life. An average meta case becomes anything but.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Spoilers for _Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring_. No, really. ;) Also, this chapter gets an angst warning and a cliffhanger alert. Unless you don't like to know about those things in advance. In that case... *Jedi mind trick handwave* ;) (Seriously, though, let me know if you prefer to know to brace for impact or you'd rather be shocked. Otherwise, I'll go with my personal preference, which is to be able to gird my loins for things like that, rather than be expecting a nice walk in the park in the sunshine only to get caught in a hurricane and blown off a cliff. o_O ;) You can also skip my note until after you've read the chapter. Whatever works for you! :D )
> 
> Next chapter will be here on Thursday! ;) Thanks so much for reading! ♥

Caitlin was about to pull the blanket up over herself and start a much-needed movie marathon when there came a knock at her door.

After a glance through the peephole, she opened it to Eobard in his suit, his eyes glowing red and motion blurring his face.

"May I come in?" he asked.

She stepped to the side to allow him to enter.

He continued down the hall and then stopped in the middle of her living room, making a gesture as if to run his hand through his hair before remembering he had the suit on. There was something familiar about the motion and she immediately forced herself to dismiss it.

"I'm…difficult," he said. "Last night didn't go to plan and I… Well, as I said, I'm difficult."

She crossed her arms and just studied him. The longer she stayed silent, the more he seemed to be fighting the urge to scuff the toe of his boot against her carpet.

"I'm trying to say that I'm sorry," he finally burst out.

"Well, then, go ahead," she invited.

He took a deep breath, exhaling noisily, either annoyed that she was making him spell it out or just annoyed that he'd put himself in the position to _need_ to. "I'm sorry I messed up dinner--"

"Nope," she interrupted.

"I'm sorry that I'm difficult--"

"Closer," she said, inclining her head.

"I'm sorry I got mad and stomped out like a toddler, all right?"

"There we go. Was that so hard?"

"Yes, it actually was," he huffed. "Now, am I forgiven?"

"Are we talking in general or just for last night?"

He briefly tipped his head back, as if calling on a supernatural well of patience. "Just last night. I'm pretty sure the amount of forgiveness I'd need to cover my entire life doesn't exist in that sort of quantity."

"Okay, then," she said. "I'll forgive you for stomping out of here like a toddler and staining my favorite tablecloth."

He tilted his head curiously at that and she explained, "The plates flipped over."

"I'll replace it."

She waved him off. "It's fine. It gives it character."

He looked around the room in another slightly awkward way. "Were you about to watch a movie?"

" _Lord of the Rings,_ the Extended Editions."

"Shouldn't you start with _The Hobbit_ trilogy, chronologically?"

"I'd need the entire weekend to watch them all," she said.

"I don't know that I would've expected you to like _Lord of the Rings_ ," he mused.

"Cisco was appalled that I hadn't seen the first trilogy. I ended up loving them so much I got my own box set."

"Don't tell me, let me guess: favorite character is… Legolas?"

She shook her head.

"Frodo? Are you a Hobbit fangirl?"

She gave him a cheeky grin. "I love Frodo but no, not my favorite character."

"Aragorn, then? People do so love a scruffy hero." 

"Getting warmer." 

He shifted into a thoughtful stance and again, that chord of familiarity went off in her mind. She quickly turned away and fussed with the blanket on the couch.

"You know, these movies practically have a cast of thousands. You could probably _watch_ the three of them before I could finish naming all the characters."

"Boromir," she said and went into the kitchen.

"Really?" he said skeptically as he followed her.

"Yes, really." She pulled down a large bowl from the cupboard and started making a double batch of popcorn.

"Boromir tried to take the Ring from Frodo, among other things. Doesn't that make him a bad guy?"

"Tried to, but didn't," she pointed out. "He made mistakes but, in the end, he owned up to them. He did what he could to make amends and he died defending the friends he'd come to care about."

"Ah," he said like an important piece of the puzzle had just clicked into place. "You like a nice redemption story. I hate to tell you that things like that don't happen in real life. Bad guys usually stay bad. Some people aren't meant to be redeemed."

She made a wordless, neutral sound and poured the popcorn into the bowl once it was ready. "Butter?"

"Am I being invited to the marathon? You're aware that it'll take all day, right?"

"Yes and yes, I am. So, butter?"

"What am I, a heathen? Of course, butter."

***

Somewhere around the second hour -- and after another bowl of popcorn with the idea of making nachos beginning to circle through her mind -- it finally occurred to Caitlin to ask, "Is it uncomfortable to wear the suit this long?"

He had his legs stretched out, looking a mile long and crossed at the ankle, and had draped his arm around her as soon as she'd allowed herself to lean against him. "Oh, I'd never make myself a suit I couldn't wear all day," he said in a mock-haughty tone. "I'd be the laughing stock of all of the local villains."

The corner of her mouth twitched but the bit of guilt still tugged at her. "What about the--?" She gestured to indicate the way he was blurring his face and distorting his voice.

He shrugged the shoulder she wasn't pressed against. "Just have to remember to keep doing it."

That didn't feel fair but she wasn't ready to stop clinging to his anonymity. "Well," she said, adjusting so that she was tucked into his chest. "No need to do it when you don't have to, right?"

His chin came to rest on top of her head, all vibration ceasing. "And if I forget?" he whispered.

"Then I'll deal with it," she said as confidently as she could and snuggled in a little more as the Fellowship prepared to enter the Mines of Moria.

***

"Wow, somebody's in a good mood today," Cisco said as Caitlin came into the lab.

"What makes you say that?" she asked.

"You're practically all glowy," he said, wiggling his fingers at her in a vague, circular motion, then his expression went wide-eyed. "Oh man, you had a date over the weekend, didn't you? You had a good date. Like, a _really_ good date! Who is he? Who? _Whoooo_?"

"Are you doing your best owl impersonations today, Mr. Ramon?" Harrison said imperiously as his motorized chair came through the door behind them both. "Because I have to inform you, it needs a lot of work. And speaking of work, weren't you going to attempt to decode those information packets from -- what did you call her? 'Ms. Future.' I was under the impression that that was important enough for you to take a moment from bothering Dr. Snow."

Cisco mouthed, _Later_ , at her and followed Dr. Wells from the room. She managed to turn a sigh of relief to a tiny exhale. Normally, she would've been happy to fill her friend in on at least a few of the more PG-13 details of the date -- which had stretched to fill the entire weekend, as it had turned out. But she couldn't help but feel a growing amount of discomfort at the sheer magnitude of what she was hiding from both Cisco and Barry. 

_And how could I tell them? How could I tell Barry? I can't look at him and say, "Yes, I know he killed your mother but he's my soulmate and the sex is, like, really fantastic."_

It was such a shame since, other than that one small detail of Eobard being, you know, _a black-hearted villain_ , he possessed so many qualities that she otherwise looked for in a potential partner: highly intelligent, quick witted, extremely observant. He did have a temper and an unfortunate penchant to turn into an unreasonable three year old when something set that temper off but he also could unexpectedly show great patience and understanding. 

She knew he would've preferred to not have to keep concealing his identity from her but he did so because she'd asked him to. At any point during the weekend when she'd told him to relax his constant vigil, he could have "accidentally" let her see his face or hear his real voice. But he didn't.

It was frighteningly easy to see them sharing a life together, if only he'd been a man without a vendetta against one of her best friends. If only he hadn't committed terrible crimes in the name of some unspoken revenge or madness or whatever it was that drove him. He didn't like to talk about it and after the incident the night of their pizza date, she hadn't tried to steer the conversation back to his grudge against Barry. If only he wasn't the Reverse Flash, the man in the yellow suit, Nora Allan's killer. 

If only, if only, if only.

Her fingers restlessly rubbed across the widow's band as she thought of the soulmark concealed beneath it. If her friends would've discovered that it was now activated, she knew they would've been thrilled for her. They would've wanted to meet him, naturally.

For a moment, she tried to imagine it: Eobard in regular clothes, unmasked, nothing to mark him as Barry's speedster nemesis. But could she see him keeping his cool when Barry held out his hand? Could she imagine him shaking it like they were meeting for the first time, like there was no grudge on Eobard's side? Like he didn't hate him?

There was a seductive pull to the idea of her friends and her soulmate able to exist happily along side each other. She shook her head. It was a nice daydream but that's all it could ever be.

An alarm went off, interrupting her errant thoughts. "Hey, guys," she called, "we have meta activity."

 _Time to go to work,_ she mused, ready to get her mind on a different subject.

***

Caitlin's breath rasped loudly in her throat, one hand pressed to her mouth as she tried to contain her sobs as she stumbled to a stop at her front door. Her keys slipped from her numb fingers and landed with a jingle that sounded much heavier than it should have.

Before she bent to retrieve them, there was a distinctive whoosh and Eobard had her keys in hand and was unlocking her door.

"Come on," he said gently, ushering her inside.

She stood still for a long moment in the entryway as he moved around her, locking the door, putting her keys back in her purse, putting her purse on the table in the hall where she usually tossed it. Then he guided her to the couch in the living room and urged her to sit.

"Are you hurt?" he asked, stripping off his gloves so he could better examine her face, tilting it gently to and fro in the light.

"No," she finally said. "Not… not like that."

"What happened?" he asked softly, sitting beside her.

"The meta," she said numbly. "He could throw kinetic blasts. Any motion, he could turn into stronger and stronger explosions. Barry couldn't approach him without making him that much more powerful. But we figured out that if Barry ran at him the _moment_ after he detonated a blast, he had time to get the neutralizing cuffs on him before he could power up again."

The breakthrough had made everything seem so simple. But the meta had taken the fight to the bridge, limiting Barry's access. Even still, given that he could make an approach by water, if necessary, it seemed straightforward.

"I gave the signal after the meta threw the next blast," she said, wiping her face, not even aware of when the tears had started to fall. "I couldn't… It looked clear. I don't know where they came from. A blind spot. I didn't realize…"

She grabbed both of his hands as if they were a lifeline.

"There was a school bus," she choked out. "It came out of nowhere and made it part of the way onto the bridge. The meta still managed to throw _another_ blast before Barry cuffed him and the bus… He tried. He went after it in a split second but the explosion hit it first. He pulled them all out but… Oh."

She had to pause, gasping for breath like she'd been punched in the stomach. "Three of them were killed in the blast. They were fourteen years old, Eobard. _Fourteen_ and I got them killed."

"No," he immediately countered. "That wasn't your fault. The meta--"

"I was in charge of the timing," she interrupted. "I should've seen the bus. I should have kept them safe somehow."

The weight of it made her crumple. He pulled her to him, stroking her hair as she cried helplessly. She clung to the front of his yellow suit, feeling like daggers of ice were tearing their way out of her. There were mistakes and there were _mistakes_. Errors that you couldn't come back from, couldn't learn to live with, that were like razors embedded into your soul, that nothing -- not time, not distance, not all the words in the world -- could ever heal.

Eventually the storm of tears relented even as the pain went on. "Marcia Anders, Alicia Bennington, Charlie Rooker," she murmured. "That was their names. Marcia just won first place in her school's science fair. Alicia and her older sister Daisy were starting a charity to help the homeless. Charlie was a classical pianist."

"Caitlin," he admonished gently. "Torturing yourself won't do any good. It wasn't your fault."

"How do you live with it?" She sat up suddenly, desperate to find the answer. "You've killed people on purpose and you just… go on. How?"

"You don't want to be like me," he said and for a moment, the distortion in his voice wavered. "I go on because I don't have a heart. You do. You care. That's your strength and your weakness."

Her expression began to fall again and he pulled her to him, threading his fingers through her hair.

"Marcia Anders, Alicia Bennington, Charlie Rooker," she repeated under her breath, as though if she said the names a thousand times, it would somehow alter their fate.

For a long moment, he didn't speak, then he sighed with a definite finality. "Do you want me to change it?"

"What?" she asked, startled into breaking the mantra of names. "Change it?"

"There's a risk, you have to know. Changing the past can have vast, odd and far-reaching consequences. The effects ripple, like a stone tossed into a lake, and you don't always get the outcome you're expecting."

She went motionless. "I didn't think you could time travel anymore. I thought that's why you're still here, why you didn't go back to your own time."

"It requires a lot of energy," he admitted. "I don't have enough yet for something large but to move back earlier in the same day? Yeah, I can do it. I will, if you want. And if you understand the risk."

She wrapped her arms around him, probably clinging too tightly in retrospect. But in the moment, all she could think of was, _He can undo it. He can save them._

"Please," she said. "Please get them back." 

"Close your eyes."

She didn't understand until she felt the subtle vibration cease. She shut her eyes and let him lean her back far enough to kiss her. There was a bit of desperation in it and when he released her, worry took up residence in her chest.

"Will you be all right?" she asked, opening her eyes when the vibration sound resumed.

"I'll be fine," he said. "I won't aim to return too close to when I'm leaving so I won't cross my own timeline. Don't be alarmed if I'm gone for a few hours from your perspective."

She nodded, a few nervous bobs of her head. "Be careful."

A familiar smirk spread across his blurred features. "Evil time traveler here," he said in his best arrogant tone. "People need to be careful of _me_ , don't you know?"

He vanished from her arms in a burst of superspeed.

She patted her hair back down and exhaled heavily, wondering how long it would take for the world to change around her.

 _How do I know that he'll even time travel?_ she thought. _He could tell me he went back and wasn't able to save them. How would I know?_

But the idea of distrust felt wrong. He would do it if he could. She didn't know why she believed that, she just did. Now, all she could do was wait.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eobard returns. Dr. Wells acts a little strange. Caitlin tries to avoid her friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're at the halfway point! O_O ;) Next chapter will be here on Saturday! ;) Thanks so much for reading! ♥

Three hours passed. Caitlin had nearly gone stir-crazy barely an hour into it, so she'd hurried out to Big Belly Burger and bought a dozen cheeseburgers and fries, figuring he'd need them to refuel his speedster metabolism. 

She bought one for herself and ate it in order to pass more of the time. But even the normally delicious burger sat like a rock in her stomach and it was all she could do to not stare at the clock in her living room as if she could make it go faster. Every fifteen minutes, she checked her phone to see if the story about the bus crash had changed. It hadn't. Three fatalities were still confirmed: Marcia Anders, Alicia Bennington and Charlie Rooker. 

Almost four hours after Eobard had left, she heard a noise at the front door and leapt up to open it without even looking. He almost fell in on her.

She managed to steady him before he went to the floor. "To the couch?" she asked, slinging his arm over her shoulder and grasping him around the waist.

"Bedroom," he said hoarsely. "Need to sleep." 

He was still attempting to disguise his face and voice but the distortion came in fits and spurts, like a radio station tuning in and out.

"Don't worry about that right now," she said. "Save your strength."

In that precarious manner, she got him to the bedroom and helped him to the bed. While she went to turn on the bathroom light and adjust the door as had become their norm, she heard the soft sound of his suit ejecting. She'd never seen how it worked but it hadn't taken long to figure out that there was some sort of quick-removal mechanism. Where it went to was also a mystery, one he hadn't yet chosen to explain.

It didn't matter right now. Though she was desperate to pepper him with questions, she held her tongue, tucking him in under the covers.

Before she moved away, he caught her hand. His soulmark, now uncovered, shone in soft blue pulses. "Stay?" he mumbled.

"Of course," she said and took the time to change out of her clothes into the nearest nightgown. It was soft, faded and comfortable, nothing seductive, but she doubted he cared very much about that at the moment.

He put his arm out in mute request as she crawled in next to him. As soon as she rested her head against his chest and heard the frantic drum of his heart, she instinctively made a concerned noise. 

"I'm fine," he whispered. Every word seemed difficult for him to get past his lips. "Better soon."

"Just rest," she said. "I'm here if you need anything."

As his heartbeat eventually slowed to normal, she was able to drift off as well.

***

Waking sometime later in the night, she gently disentangled herself from his arms and moved quietly to the bathroom. He made an indecipherable noise but otherwise didn't wake.

After taking care of her most pressing business, she went into the kitchen, grabbing her phone along the way to search quickly for the news of the bus accident.

There was only a mention that the Flash had once again protected the city against a meta's threat.

 _He wasn't the only one,_ she thought proudly, a cool wave of relief washing through her.

She checked the three students' names separately, just for a final reassurance: Marcia Anders was still the first place winner at her school's science fair. Charlie Rooker had a bright future as a classical pianist. And… _Daisy_ Bennington had started a charity to help the homeless.

_"Daisy, 16, an only child, said she was inspired to create her charity after writing an essay…"_

"No, what happened to Alicia?" she murmured, her brows drawing together in distress.

While she tried different search combinations, she heard Eobard get up and go into the bathroom, then eventually come into the kitchen. He'd donned the yellow suit and was once more concealing his face and voice.

"I'm going to grab something to eat--" he began but she wordlessly opened the fridge with one hand to show him the Big Belly Burgers stacked neatly inside while she kept scrolling her phone with the other.

"You're a star," he said with genuine gratitude, gathering them up to reheat.

Only once he'd sat at the table -- and after mutely offering her a burger to which she just distractedly shook her head -- did he make the obvious comment. "So, what is it that's changed in the timeline?"

"Alicia Bennington doesn't seem to exist." The words exploded out as if she'd held them back as long as she could. "I don't understand. How could _saving her life_ write her out of existence?"

He superspeed-ate two of the burgers before answering. "I diverted the bus. It _had_ been in a blind spot for you, there's no way you could've known it was there. Just bad timing. The Flash didn't seem to have any problem playing the hero. No casualties. But… like I told you. Time travel has consequences that can ripple backwards."

She sat down next to him at the table, her numb fingers letting her phone clatter to the tabletop.

"I'm sorry, Caitlin," he said softly. 

She took a deep breath, trying to pull herself together. "No, you still did good," she said resolutely, reaching over and squeezing his nearest hand. "You saved two kids. That's something to be proud of."

He studied her for a moment. "Don't let the soulmark blind you. I didn't do this out of altruism. I'm no hero. I would've been fine leaving them dead."

That stung unexpectedly and she drew her hand back. "Then why did you do it?"

"I discovered there's one thing in the world that I just can't endure."

She waited silently.

For a moment, the distortion wavered but never to the point that it revealed his face. "I can't bear to see you in pain," he said then calmly continued eating.

***

By the time both Barry and Cisco had asked her twice if she was all right, Caitlin had concluded that she would've made a terrible spy. But hearing her friends joking and laughing, with absolutely no memory of the way the mission on the bridge yesterday had originally gone devastatingly astray left her feeling rattled.

 _"The old memories will be gone for everyone else,"_ Eobard had told her over breakfast. _"They didn't change for you because you're closer to the nexus of the event that changed them. They may fade in a few hours and you'll only have the new memories. Or you may be one of those people who'll keep both. Usually that's only time travelers but it can happen to others as well."_

So far, the earlier memories seemed to have no intention of leaving. In a way, she was glad. Right now, she and Eobard were the only people in the world who knew Alicia Bennington had been erased. At least, Caitlin could honor her loss by remembering her, for whatever that was worth.

Eobard had offered a final warning in lieu of a farewell before he'd left. _"Despite what I said, this was a one-time deal. If a boat of nuns goes down or a plane of kittens crash, then that's sad but that's the way it is. I have to conserve my energy for a larger jump, I can't keep bleeding it off for smaller ones. Are we clear?"_

 _"Crystal,"_ she'd said, struggling not to have hurt feelings over his admonishing tone. Marcia Anders and Charlie Rooker were alive today when they hadn't been yesterday. Better to have lost one than all three. 

_Alicia,_ she thought regretfully but noticed her friends watching her curiously again. _I've got to get them thinking about something else before I blurt out the entire mess._

"Any progress on decrypting Ms. Future's information packets?" she asked Cisco as a last resort.

"Actually," he said, spinning his chair around completely in a circle, "I think I may have cracked the algorithm. Now it's just waiting to see what data gets generated."

"Great," she said, expecting him to go on in more detail about his pet project, but instead he gave her another calculating look.

Dr. Wells ended up coming to her rescue by calling both of the other men to help him with a project, giving her some much needed breathing room.

A few hours later, she found herself creeping towards the break room -- there was really no dignified way to term it other than that -- hoping that she wouldn't run into one of her friends. She'd just made it in the door when she realized she wasn't alone: Dr. Wells was already there, staring contemplatively into his half-empty cup of coffee.

"Dr. Snow," he said in greeting without looking up.

She almost apologized for interrupting, then remembered that this wasn't his personal break room. "Hi. How are you?"

He gave a noncommittal sound and she murmured under her breath, "Yeah, I get that," before she could stop herself. Since he typically wasn't fond of sarcastic responses, she expected some sort of reprimanding look but he merely took a sip from his mug. From anybody else, she would've sworn they'd done that to hide a smile.

As she pulled a mug down from the cabinet, she said, "I wish I could turn this into that new cinnamon caramel concoction they've come up with at Jitters. I know it's more dessert than coffee but it's certainly delicious."

 _Am I making small talk? I'm trying to make small talk and I'm failing miserably,_ she thought.

She honestly didn't expect a reply but he said, "You should go, then. There's nothing going here right now. Go have your 'dessert concoction.'"

She turned with a questioning look and he gave a _go on_ waggle of his fingers. "What about you? Would you want to--?"

"No," he said and, to her surprise, he tossed back the rest of his coffee in one gulp. "I have a call to make."

He turned his chair and was halfway out the door when he paused, not quite looking back over his shoulder at her. "But… thank you anyway."

It was only after he was gone that she realized he'd inexplicably taken the empty mug with him.

In the end, she decided against leaving, worried that she'd lose the nerve to come back. _I'm not going to be scared of being at S.T.A.R. Labs or doing my job or being around my friends,_ she thought firmly.

Thankfully, though, the rest of the day was uneventful. _I'm glad not_ every day _has to be Thwart A Meta day,_ she mused, gathering up her things. She hadn't seen Barry or Cisco in hours but she felt much more secure in her ability to pretend there was nothing different about today than any other.

However, she wasn't averse to making a quick getaway.

"Hey, Cait," Barry called as she got to the door and she gave a slightly guilty start as she turned to find both he and Cisco approaching. "You sure you're doing all right? You seem…"

"Spooked," Cisco concluded. "Wait, you're not _literally_ seeing ghosts or anything, right? Because that would be a pretty great meta ability. Give me a second and I'll come up with a _totally_ cool codename!"

She gave a crooked smile at his teasing tone. "Sorry to disappoint. No ghosts or other meta abilities. I was just a little distracted today."

"You're not having man trouble, are you? Is your fellow not treating you right? Because I've got a couple of options I can think of for that…" Cisco's eyes glinted in surprising seriousness as he gazed off in thought.

She forced a -- decidedly fake -- laugh. "What makes you think I have a fellow just because I had one date?"

Cisco leveled that same gaze at her and the sheer, raw intelligence behind it made her want to squirm like a bug pinned to a board. "Really?" he said flatly. "Like you think I'm new here and don't know you? You're absolutely seeing somebody and you have been for a while. I just don't get why you don't want us to know about him."

"I mean, clearly you wanted your privacy," Barry interjected into the sudden awkward silence. "But… come on, Cait, you know we're your friends. If you're happy, then we're happy. That's all we care about."

A thousand scenarios ran through her head in a heartbeat: did she confirm and risk them pressing to meet "her fellow" or did she cling to denial and raise their suspicions even higher?

_I want to give them what honesty I can, even if it's just a little bit. Even if I have to wrap it in a lie if they get too close._

"I _am_ happy," she said. "It's just complicated."

Cisco definitely had an opinion about her word choice but Barry gave him a very unsubtle elbow to the ribs.

"Like we said, we're happy if you're happy," Barry repeated, staring sternly at the other man.

"Fine," Cisco muttered. "But if you run off and elope or something before I get to throw you a killer bachelorette party, I'm really going to have my feelings hurt. Just remember that, hm?"

She laughed for real this time. "I promise," she said and this time when she left, she was smiling. Sweating a little bit but smiling.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eobard has a peace offering. Shenanigans occur. Then things go very wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to humbly apologize in advance for the fact this particular chapter is occurring on a Saturday, which means there's an extra day before the next update. :( If it's any consolation, though, the next chapter is the longest chapter in the fic. ;)
> 
> The mature warning is making a (long-awaited? ;) ) comeback. Warning for drastic tonal shifts after the first act and by the third, things get intense. The cliffhanger ending warning is in full (Speed) force. ;)
> 
> Thanks so much for reading! ♥

As Caitlin turned the key to her front door, the heady scent of lasagna baked to perfection made her actually flutter her eyelashes like a damsel-in-distress in an old black and white movie. She tossed her purse and keys aside and headed in to find her table once more set elegantly with candles -- different ones, this time, though still in a gold and red motif -- and a lacy new tablecloth.

In the kitchen, she found Eobard bringing a pan out of the oven and she leaned in the doorway for a moment to observe. Considering the slightly uncomfortable way things had been left between them that morning, she wondered if this was a mute peace offering. And redoing his rather disastrous last attempt at making dinner? A typically bold move from the Reverse Flash, she had to admit.

"Hi, honey, I'm home," she said and he gave her a blurry grin over his shoulder.

"Did you have a good day at the office, dear?" he said. When he turned with the pan in hand, it revealed that he had an apron tied over his yellow suit. In neatly embroidered block letters, it read "Kiss The Cook" across the front.

"I did," she answered. "So, did you take cooking classes recently?"

"Even better. That new Italian place that just opened? They do take out." He used his chin to indicate the dining room. "Go have a seat. Everything's ready to plate up."

In short order, he'd brought their dinner out, poured a glass of wine for each of them and was about to sit when he said, "Oh, I nearly forgot."

He was at her side in a moment, gesturing at the front of the apron he still wore. "You have to do what it says. I don't make the rules, sorry."

"Oh, well, if I _have_ to," she teased back, reaching up for him and closing her eyes so that he could press a kiss to her mouth without the vibration. She felt a feathery hint of motion at her left wrist and when she looked, he'd removed the widow's band that covered her soulmark.

As he straightened, he took off the apron and rolled his left cuff back, revealing his mark as well. Both glowed brighter as if taking deep breaths.

Dinner was a thoroughly pleasant affair, in stark contrast to how their first had turned out. He cleared the dishes in a burst of superspeed once they were done and replaced her plate with one that had a generous slice of a decadent dark chocolate cake.

"Oh, I'm so full, I don't know if I can--" she started to say until she took a bite. "Never mind, I'm fine. This is _amazing_. The whole dinner was just… wow. I loved it all. Thank you."

"You're quite welcome," he said and took a leisurely bite of cake. Then both of his hands dropped out of sight on the other side of the table.

Her soulmark flared again as if touched and she gasped in surprise. "What are you doing?"

"Hm?" He managed a very credible innocent tone but she knew better.

"Eobard." She tried to sound stern but a fluttery sensation ran up from the soulmark and traveled straight to the apex of her thighs, lighting up thousands of interesting places all along the way.

The noise she made elicited a chuckle from him but he relented and brought his arm up so she could watch him trace his fingertips over his own soulmark. Hers lit up in concert.

"How are you doing that?" she asked breathily.

"I did some research and read it was possible, so thought it was worth a try."

"Let me try," she said and repeated similar motions on her own mark. "Anything?"

He made an apologetic sound. "It seems to be a meta thing, sorry."

"Hm," she said, frowning down at her wrist. "It works if I'm in direct contact with your mark but not from a distance. That doesn't seem very fair."

But she was slipping her foot out of her shoe as she spoke and the moment she made contact with his leg, he startled slightly.

"I guess I'll just have to figure something else out, won't I?" she said and gave him a gently devious smile. 

"I suppose you will," he said and the tone of his voice went higher as her toes slid upwards along his calf. He cleared his throat as she traced a circle against his knee.

He shifted restlessly, then deliberately rubbed the pad of his thumb back and forth along one edge of his soulmark, first with a barely perceptible touch, then firmer, then back to soft.

She had to grab the edge of the table as a warm wave of arousal spread through her. His smile was unmistakable, even through the blur of motion.

She stretched so to continue her journey up along the inside of his thigh. _It's still a little surreal that I know which side the Reverse Flash dresses to,_ she thought, brushing her foot from toe to heel against the unmistakable bulge in his suit.

Whatever he intended to say came out was a mishmash of buzzing sounds.

"Is that so?" she said and licked her lips daintily when he looked at her.

"Bad girl," he murmured and, with great deliberation, swept his tongue over the pad of his thumb and then applied it with long strokes against his soulmark.

The feeling of being touched was so strong she couldn't resist the urge to look down.

"I actually can be in two places at once if I want," he said, managing to achieve a very conversational tone once more. "But in this case, I'm not. I-- Oh."

She put her other foot up onto his thigh, bracketing him between the soles of her feet and stroking him a few times with varying degrees of firmness.

Vibration briefly covered his entire body, shaking hard enough she could feel it rumbling through the floor up the legs of her chair. She grabbed her plate of cake as the table did a little dance, then caught the nearest candle as it tipped.

He put a hand on her feet to forestall any other movement. "Apparently, I'm not as good at multitasking as I thought," he admitted. "Might we move this somewhere I'm not as likely to set on fire?"

"But what about dessert?" she asked in _her_ best innocent voice and slowly took another bite of cake while flexing her toes.

He seemed to forget how to speak for a moment, then blurred out of sight and the next thing she knew, the plates were gone and she heard the refrigerator door close before he reappeared at her side.

"My dear, I intend to make _you_ the dessert," he said huskily, holding out his hand.

She grinned and let him pull her up from the chair.

***

Caitlin woke a while later, instinctively reaching her hand out and finding the bed cold next to her. But then the mattress shifted and she realized he was sitting on the edge. He moved again and she could see the soft glow of his soulmark in the darkness.

"Something wrong?" she asked, her voice slightly sleep-roughened.

"Everything ends, you know," he said. "This will end eventually, too. One way or another."

He'd never shown this sort of a melancholy side before and, for a moment, she wasn't sure what to say. She shrugged out from under the covers and crawled over to him, pressing herself against his back and resting her chin on his shoulder as she wrapped her arms around him.

"You're right," she agreed softly. "So I suppose all we can do is enjoy the time we have."

He sat there quietly for a few more moments before exhaling heavily. "I suppose so," he said.

"Come lay back down," she murmured, tugging gently on him. He generally liked to be the big spoon whenever they were curled together but this time, he caught her on her back and put his head on her chest, wrapping around her like he thought she'd vanish if he wasn't holding on tightly enough.

She kissed the top of his head and eventually went to sleep while he listened to her heartbeat.

***

"No, no, no," Caitlin chanted under her breath. "The meta's turning around. Cisco, can you get out of there?"

A loud, echoing splash blared through the comms, making her wince.

"I'd say that's a no," Dr. Wells murmured, his hands flying over the keyboard. "Still no response from Barry. I don't know if his comms were fried or if he's unconscious."

"Vitals are steady," she reported, automatically leaning forward in her seat. "Barry, can you hear us? Cisco's in trouble. You need to get back to the water tower."

"Guys, a little problem here." Cisco's voice shook with effort as he treaded water. "This thing is filling up fast."

"Hang on, Cisco," Caitlin said, trying to keep her tone steady and reassuring. She momentarily muted the mic to Cisco's comm and spoke directly to Barry. "Come on, Barry. Cisco doesn't have a lot of time. Get back to the water tower and get him out as fast as you can."

Barry's vitals were unchanging and he remained unmoving. She made a frustrated noise, shoving away from her desk. 

The craziest notion went through her and she almost _said it_ before clamping down on her tongue. _That doesn't make any sense. Why would I think--?_

But it was as if she was desperately running through a maze, skidding to a halt at a dead-ends, reversing directions, realizing that there was a ribbon of red and gold woven into the walls and if she just followed it…

"Hey, not to rush you," Cisco said, his breath short and fast, "but I've got about 6 inches of breathable space left. Tell Barry he's such a kidder cutting it so close."

_…followed it to the center…_

She switched the mic on again. "It's going to be okay," she said firmly. "He's almost there. Try to slow your breathing, conserve your air. He'll have you out in no time."

Dr. Wells looked at her while she lied, then an eyebrow raised as she reached over and muted all of their comms, then switched off the camera as well.

_…then the answer had been there all along._

"Go get him," she said, looking down at her keyboard.

"What?" Confusion was clear in his normally unflappable voice.

Now she turned to him. "He can't die. He just can't. Not like this. Not when he can be saved."

"Caitlin, I don't know what you think I--" He stopped when she reached over and put her hand atop his widower's band.

"I don't know what sort of things it would change to go back and save him, but I'll ask it. I will. So it's better to just save him in the first place. He's a lot more to me than Alicia Bennington and you know how that worked out. Please. _Save him_."

For a moment, he just looked at her, his eyes glinting with cold calculation behind his glasses. Then he sighed slightly and took the glasses off, placing them on the table. 

In the next breath, he was gone.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cisco's rescue has repercussions. Caitlin and Eobard meet face-to-undisguised-face at last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is the longest in the entire fic, long enough that I considered breaking it into two. But that would've put their conversation into the next chapter and I didn't want to do that. So, hopefully you don't mind a super-sized chapter! (Grab some snacks, a drink and settle in, lol! ;) )
> 
> Warnings: The first act is, naturally, intense as coming from the end of the previous chapter. The mature warning is also in full (Speed) force. ;) There is a cliffhanger. (Truthfully, there's going to be a cliffhanger ending on all of these final chapters except for the final one.)
> 
> We're in the homestretch now! In less than a week, the story will be concluded. I have such mixed feelings about that. I hate to let them go but I'm so happy to have managed to go on this whole journey with them, especially with each of you who have read and commented all along the way! (And if you're here after this has all been long ago posted, just know that I **also** consider you a rock star, especially if you're kind enough to comment/kudos!) Anyway, thanks so much for reading! ♥

For a moment, Caitlin could only stare at the empty motorized chair. It had been a leap of faith where she flung herself off the cliff with only a few random clues to piecemeal together into a rope.

_His hair, his body type, the fact that I would obviously know his face and voice. He always had to be somebody in my life. Somebody close._

Giving herself a mental shake to get back to the urgent matter at hand, she flipped her mic back on. "Cisco, it's going to be okay. You just hang in there, okay?"

A terrible gurgling noise was the only response.

"No, no, no," she whispered again.

A metal screech, like a door being torn off its hinges, came through the comms. Listening intently, she tried to place each sound, trying to work out what was happening.

_I think he's got him out. Yes, he's got him on solid ground. That's… That's CPR. Oh God, he's not breathing!_

"Come on, come on," she said, not sure if her friend could hear her or not. "Cisco, you've got to breathe, come on."

The resuscitation noises went on for what felt like forever but was probably no more than thirty seconds. Then she heard coughing and wet spluttering.

_He's alive!_

Then came the distinctive sound of a speedster leaving and almost immediately, the louder whoosh of him returning to S.T.A.R. Labs. She turned in her chair and opened her mouth to speak as he crossed the room but he pressed a finger to his lips and shook his head no.

He sat back in the wheelchair again, put his glasses on and ran a hand over his hair. Then he flipped all of the mics and the camera back on, never looking at her.

"Barry is on the move," he reported just as Barry's voice crackled over the comms along with the sound of him arriving at superspeed.

"I'm here, guys. Whatever that meta hit me with caused temporary paralysis. I could hear but I couldn't move or answer. Cisco, are you all right? Here, I'll get you back to S.T.A.R. Labs."

"No," Caitlin said, "take him to the hospital."

"Don't need hospital," Cisco said hoarsely and then, from the sound of it, coughed up half a swimming pool.

"Drowning victims go to the hospital," she said firmly. "There can be complications. No arguing. Barry, take him."

"You heard the lady," Barry said, only partly apologetic.

"If you'd like to meet him there, go ahead, Dr. Snow," Harrison said, still without looking at her. "You'll feel better when you see he's okay."

"I--" she started to say but he turned his chair and left without giving her the chance to finish her sentence.

"I guess I will, then," she said to no one and went to grab her purse.

Several hours later, she and Barry -- now sans his Flash suit and in civilian clothes -- were finally allowed to see their friend.

"I'm not staying the night," Cisco said as soon as they came in. "I'm _fine_. No residual water in my lungs. If I have any shortness of breath, I'll get myself right back here, scout's honor. I need to head out and check the surveillance."

"Of what?" Barry asked, lowering his tone.

"Of the water tower," the other man said, also speaking softer, aware of the many other people bustling to and fro around them.

"Why?" Caitlin asked, a sinking sensation forming in her chest.

"Because I think the Reverse Flash was the one who pulled me out," Cisco said softly, narrowing his eyes, "and I want to figure out where he came from."

***

Caitlin tried to convince him to go home to rest and wait until the morning but her friend was resolute. She tried not to fidget nervously as he called up the footage.

"Yes, look, I was right!" He gave a short fist-pump as the Reverse Flash appeared on the grainy security footage, rescued Cisco, gave him CPR, then sped away.

"Huh," Cisco mused, "weird thing is that I get the feeling he's not a bad kisser. _Anyway_ , though, let's see where he came from."

Caitlin struggled to neither hyperventilate or noticeably hold her breath. Thankfully, both of her friends were intent on watching the monitor.

"That doesn't make sense," Barry murmured as Cisco reversed the footage only to see the man in the yellow suit seem to appear out of thin air a few streets away from the water tower. Then he vanished in the same manner after he'd left. "Does he have some sort of transporting tech? Is that a new power of his? Or has the footage just been tampered with?"

Cisco's fingers flew over the keyboard. "I don't know yet. I'll figure it out. But, oh. We do have something at least. Ms. Future's info packets are finally fully decrypted. I took the chance on looking for a particular name first. How would you guys like to see what the Reverse Flash looks like under that mask? Meet Eobard Thawne."

Caitlin's heart dropped to the floor and, for a perilous moment, she thought she was going to end up passed out next to it.

An image came up on the monitor and she _almost_ blurted out, "But that's not him!"

The man in the picture had sandy blond hair and blue eyes. Handsome, with an intense expression, as if he was looking back from the other side of the screen and was confident he knew more than you did.

That intensity, combined with the smirk tugging at his mouth, convinced her. _Eobard,_ she thought. _I don't know how that's him but… I know it is._

Barry slammed his fist on the desk, startling her. "Now we've got him," he said. "We know what he looks like under the mask so we can--"

"--run facial recognition and find him," Cisco finished, fingers flying once more. "Already on it. If the Reverse Flash is out buying groceries in his civvies, we can locate him now."

***

Caitlin paced her living room, her mind in turmoil. Should she tell Eobard that Cisco and Barry had his face -- had _a_ face for him, at least -- or would that put her friends in danger? But they'd inevitably end up telling him themselves when they told Dr.--

A knock at her front door interrupted her anxious thoughts and she opened it without even checking.

Eobard was on her doorstep looking as usual: in the yellow suit, eyes glowing red and features blurred. But when he entered at her silent gesture, he waited until she had shut the door and joined him in the living room to let the distortion drop.

"I had a whole reveal planned, you know?" he said in his undisguised voice. "But it seems a little pointless now."

He pulled the hood back and Harrison Wells stood next to her couch, dressed like the Reverse Flash. 

"When did you know?" he asked.

She took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. "For certain? Not until you really did go get Cisco."

He raised an eyebrow. "You weren't sure when you asked? That was a huge risk, then, if you'd been wrong."

"Hasn't this entire thing been a huge risk, anyway?"

He gave a _so true_ roll of his hands then took off his gloves and turned back his sleeve, revealing his soulmark shining like a beacon. She gasped as her own mark flared. It wasn't anything sexual this time. It was perilously close to _hopelessness_.

"Whatever you use to block that in your suit is in your widower's band, too, isn't it?" she asked, trying to steady herself from the unexpected onslaught of emotion. "You had your own antidote of sorts all along."

"Everyone knows Harrison Wells already had a soulmate. I couldn't risk having 'another one' if it triggered in public one day. I needed to be able to control it. When I saw that your mark matched mine, I should've ignored it but…" He shook his head slightly.

A thousand questions crowded her mouth but most of them were just stating the obvious so she discarded them and started with something older.

"How did you manage to get me out of that van those months ago? You were at S.T.A.R. Labs with Cisco, how did he not notice you speedstering out of there in a yellow suit?"

"Sheer dumb luck," he admitted. "I was in the lab while he was in the Cortex. I got back before he knew I was gone."

"What would you have done if that hadn't been the case?" she asked curiously. "Would you have revealed yourself just to get me out before the explosion? The soulmarks hadn't been activated yet."

He looked down, as shamefaced as she'd ever seen him.

She accepted that non-answer for what it was and switched to something else. "Did I ever work for the real Dr. Wells?"

"No."

She stepped forward and, to her surprise, he flinched. Moving a little more slowly, she brought her hand up and traced her fingers down his cheek. Her eyes closed for a moment. No, her fingertips didn't need sight to know that she was intimately familiar with this face.

"What happened to Dr. Wells, then?" she asked, looking at him once more. "How did you get his identity?"

"You deserve answers and I'll give them to you, I will, but… Would you wait forty-five minutes or so?"

She started to ask _Wait for what?_ but the marks flared again and a desperate, needy sensation ran from the base of her spine to the nape of her neck and back again.

"Let me look at you," he said roughly and kissed the hand that still lingered at his face. "Please."

She nodded and, after a burst of superspeed, he sat her down on her bed. He switched on the nightstand lamp then made an indeterminate motion and the suit _ejected_. It immediately folded infinitesimally small, vanishing into his ring and leaving him in a white dress shirt and black pants, a stripped-down version of the Harrison Wells garb she'd seen him in every day for years.

For a moment, the sheer amount of laws of physics she'd just seen hurdle-jumped made her dizzy. "How does that even--?"

He knelt before her and pulled her into a kiss before she could finish her sentence. There was a desperation to it and he was tugging at her clothing, loathe to break away for more than a moment as he undressed her. His own clothes were shed in a literal instant so that when he pressed her back onto the bed, there was a long line of warm skin against skin.

By now, he knew her body quite well but seemed to want to rediscover her from head-to-toe now that he could see her. There was such a strange dichotomy to it: she knew the feel of his hands, knew the way his muscles bunched and moved beneath her own palms, knew the sound of his breath, knew his heartbeat in the dark but hadn't known how stormy the blue of his eyes could get, had never seen the almost reverent look that would sometimes cross his face when he touched her. She knew Eobard, even knew the Reverse Flash, the man in the yellow suit, but now he looked like her mentor, her boss, sometimes very nearly her friend.

_No wonder he'd act so cold sometimes. Or how he'd interrupt when it seemed like Barry or Cisco were questioning me a little too much. Eobard's been right there with me every day and I never saw it, not until I needed to._

He made a bit of a growly, frustrated noise. "I'm doing a bad job if you're thinking this much," he said, indicating his soulmark, which must've been transmitting the whirlwind of her emotions.

"No, I just--" she started to say but he bumped her thighs apart and slid down to apply his tongue in a manner that immediately took every thought out of her head.

It didn't take him long to have her writhing under his skillful mouth and fingers. He usually liked to take her to the edge, draw back and then take her there again and again several times. This time, though, he let her fall the first time, working her through the contractions until the last of her orgasm fluttered away. 

He gave her a moment to catch her breath, then crawled up next to her, stretching out on his side, and said, "So then, what were you thinking about?"

"Well," she said slowly and could feel him tense, trying to anticipate her first difficult question. "I was thinking that it hasn't been forty-five minutes yet. So it's my turn."

She nudged him onto his back, looming over him with a smile. The smirk he gave her in return was an expression she'd never seen before on Harrison Wells' face. 

But she had on the blonde man in the image from Ms. Future's files.

***

It was closer to 2 hours later, as Caitlin lay dozing with her head on his chest, that she realized why a tinge of sadness was still gently transmitting through their soulmarks, where typically there would've only been satisfaction and, dare she even believe, affection.

_He thinks this is the last time._

He sighed as if he'd heard the thought and stroked her hair idly. "I didn't intend to kill Nora Allen," he said, his tone very neutral. "I didn't come back here for her but the plan went wrong and I… improvised."

She didn't raise her head, since he seemed more inclined to talk without meeting her gaze at the moment. "Who did you come back for, then?"

"Barry, of course."

"To…?"

"Kill him as a child. I thought that would solve my issues if he never existed as an adult. It was stupid, honestly, but I couldn't always see straight when it came to _the Flash_."

He said the name like it was a curse word, then got his tone under control again before he went on, "I lost my connection to the Speed Force after Nora died so I couldn't go home. My best option was to make sure Barry became a meta. To teach him to come into his own speed so I could leech it away from him bit by bit until I had enough to go home. The irony, hm? I came to destroy the Flash and I had to help make him instead."

"Do you still hate him? This Barry? Our Barry?"

"No," he said so quietly it was more an echo in the cavern of his chest. "I don't hate who he is right now. It's hard, Caitlin. I have them both in my head: this Barry and the Barry from my time. He's nothing like his younger self, trust me. He's much crueler. You wouldn't like who he became anymore than I did."

He tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear, smoothing it back. "I needed Harrison Wells to develop his particle accelerator more quickly than he was, to get Barry his meta abilities as soon as possible. I have tech that lets me take a person's appearance along with their memories. I used that to replace him the night of his car wreck."

"You didn't say 'car accident.'"

"It wasn't an accident. I caused it."

She had to tell herself to take a breath. "Tess died in that wreck."

"She would've known I wasn't her soulmate. That's the only thing that couldn't be replicated. She was… collateral damage. I didn't realize at the time that I would inherit his feelings for her. It felt like I'd murdered my own soulmate for a lot of years. Still."

The last word was so soft it was barely audible. His heart rate picked up, meta-fast, like he was running at top speed even though his only movement was to continue to stroke her hair.

"And the real Dr. Wells?"

He exhaled heavily, not quite a sigh but close. "The tech kills the original host."

She squeezed her eyes shut. She really couldn't have imagined anything different, could she? "So, Nora Allen, the Wells, and who else?"

"Anyone who got in my way was eliminated. Anyone who got too suspicious, too close to my secret. It gets surprisingly easy, after the first."

Now she did lift her head. He looked back at her resolutely, his expression clear that he wasn't asking for, nor did he expect, absolution for his crimes.

"What about Cisco and Barry?" she asked. "What if they learn your secret?"

His gaze flickered away then came back. "I don't know. Before, I would've had a definite answer but now? I don't know. Did they get something from the surveillance from the water tower? I didn't have time to erase it as cleanly as I would've liked. Are they onto the fact that the Reverse Flash came from S.T.A.R. Labs?"

She inclined her head slightly, saying nothing.

"You know they'll tell me as soon as they see me," he pointed out. "Unless they got a lot more information than I expect. Do they know who I am?"

"I can't answer that without knowing what you'll do to them."

He gave a wordless noise that was a step away from annoyed, then made the effort to calm down. "I won't do anything I don't have to do. That's the best I can promise. It's actually a lot for me. I'm not a good person. I've never hid _that_ from you."

Desperation swelled through her in an icy wave. "Don't go back to S.T.A.R. Labs," she implored. "Disappear."

"And that won't be suspicious? Once Barry knows, he'll hunt me to the ends of this Earth and you know it. One of us _will_ kill the other. Would you rather I kill him or that Barry becomes a murderer himself?"

"Then go back home," she said even as the idea of never seeing him again felt like getting hit squarely in the chest with an axe. "Just… I can't let you hurt them but I can't… I can't let them hurt _you_ , either."

Tears welled in her eyes, tracking slowly down her cheeks. He gently wiped them away with the pad of his thumb.

"They have your face," she said quietly. "Your real one."

"From Ms. Future's data? That won't do them a lot of good. That face hasn't been seen in a long time. Though, strangely enough, I sometimes expect to see it in the mirror, even after all these years. If that's all they have right now, that's nothing."

"But eventually, they'll figure it out."

"Yes. Sooner or later."

She leaned into his palm, closing her eyes briefly again. "Maybe I should tell them, then. Control the timing. Give you a chance for a head start."

For a long moment, she felt him hold his breath, his hand going still against her face.

"Will you kill me to stop me?" she asked and opened her eyes when the arm he had around her tightened slightly. "You have to have thought about it. I'm a vulnerability, aren't I? An obstacle to be removed to protect your secret? Will you kill me, too, Eobard?"

Anguish flooded through the soulmark. "Never," he murmured. "I'd never hurt you."

"Because of this?" She turned her arm over to let the mark shine forth.

"No, because of this," he said and pressed her hand to his chest to feel the heavy thrum of his heart.

***

He was gone before Caitlin woke in the morning. On the nightstand, she found a note:

_"Don't tell them anything yet. Give me time to prepare for the jump."_


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything falls apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for intense scenes and implied threats of violence. Cliffhanger ending.

After reading Eobard's note, Caitlin rushed through her morning routine, showering and dressing in record time and bypassing breakfast so to follow him to S.T.A.R. Labs as soon as she could. 

As she hurried down the corridor to the Cortex, the click of her heels echoing nervously, she steeled herself, not sure of what she would find.

At first, it seemed like no one was there, but then she spotted Cisco's jacket haphazardly tossed on the back of his chair. She checked a few places, the labs, even the Pipeline but S.T.A.R. Labs had the slightly eerie feel of a ghost town.

But as she returned to the Cortex, she discovered Barry and Cisco standing there, both looking grim.

"Hey, what's going on?" she asked uneasily.

"You know the other day with the water tower?" Cisco said softly, shuffling his feet. "I didn't realize until later that I'd left my phone behind. Good thing, I suppose, no water damage, then. But… I'd been leaving myself a note and I forgot all about it when I ran out."

He pulled his phone from his pocket and tapped the screen. "I accidentally left it recording." 

Her voice echoed through the room:

_"Go get him."_

_"What?"_

_"He can't die. He just can't. Not like this. Not when he can be saved."_

_"Caitlin, I don't know what you think I--"_

_"I don't know what sort of things it would change to go back and save him, but I'll ask it. I will. So it's better to just save him in the first place. He's a lot more to me than Alicia Bennington and you know how that worked out. Please._ Save him."

Then came the undeniable sound of a speedster leaving.

Cisco stopped the playback. "And then, lo and behold: the Reverse Flash came to my rescue." Both his tone and the look in his eyes was infinitely sad.

But Barry, however, was angry. He was suddenly in front of her fast enough that it blew her hair and made her flinch.

"How could you?" he said, his expression tortured. "How could you work with him? How could you let _me_ work with him? He killed my mom, Cait!"

"What didn't actually make sense to me," Cisco interjected, approaching close enough that he actually edged a shoulder in front of Barry's arm, "is the fact that it kinda sounded like he didn't think you were sure who he was."

She crossed her arms, feeling both vulnerable and miserable. "I wasn't. Not until he left."

"What made you think Dr. Wells was the Reverse Flash, then?" Barry asked, still clearly struggling to comprehend how deep the betrayal ran and who all was included in it.

"It was the opposite, really. I didn't know the Reverse Flash was Dr. Wells." While she spoke, she pulled the widow's band from her arm and turned her wrist over to reveal the glowing sapphire lines.

Barry's confused expression deepened, logic clearly compromised by emotion, but she saw Cisco understand.

"The Reverse Flash is her soulmate," he told the other man. "But she didn't know he was pretending to be Dr. Wells."

"Well, how'd _that_ work?" Barry exclaimed, ruffling his hair in frustration.

"He kept his face hidden and his voice obscured," she admitted.

Cisco's eyebrows went up. "The whole time? Like… the _whole_ time? 'Cause that's… that's actually pretty kinky."

For a moment, she forgot the seriousness of the situation and just raised an eyebrow of her own at him.

"Okay, never mind that. I don't actually want that image in my head, anyway. Who's Alicia Bennington? I looked the name up but couldn't find anybody that made sense."

She reversed a few steps so as to lean a hip against her desk. It gave her an excuse to regain some personal space. "Do you remember the meta who threw the kinetic blasts? Barry had to cuff him on the bridge and it went pretty easily? It didn't go like that at first."

"At first?" the taller man echoed.

She gave them a condensed version of events: the bus making it onto the bridge, the three fourteen year olds who died, Eobard going back and altering the events at her behest, as well as the unintended consequence of Alicia being erased from the timeline.

Cisco cursed under his breath. "I'm surprised he really did do it. I would've thought he would've just told you he tried but failed. I mean, how would you know the difference?"

That thought had crossed her mind back then as well. "But he did do it. He changed it so the bus wasn't in harm's way but still… He warned me that changing the past would have a price. Alicia was the price. But two other kids lived thanks to what he did."

"Does he get a pass for killing my mom, then?" Barry shot back, pacing anxiously. "How many people does he have to save to offset the ones he killed? When did murder become okay to you?"

"It's not. Not at all." She struggled to find a way to describe something she'd never been able to put into words. Why had she just… let that part go? It should've disgusted her, outraged her, made her turn him away, soulmate or not. Mostly, she had just _not thought about it_ as much as possible but that was a terrible thing to say to Nora Allen's son.

"It's not her fault," Cisco said, clearly trying to defuse the tension. "There've been studies on soulmates, that the marks can override traits that otherwise a person wouldn't agree to. Without the mark, she wouldn't have walked up to the Reverse Flash and said, 'Hey, look at you being all sexy in that yellow suit with all the murder and stuff.' Um, right?"

He looked at her expectantly and there was a heartbeat when all she could think was _I hope not_ but she really didn't know.

"I'm so sorry, Barry," she said, spreading her hands helplessly. "I wish I had something better to say than--"

"You're sorry?" He was suddenly in front of her again, a thousand jagged bolts of lightning skating along his skin, making him look more inhuman than she'd ever seen him. There was nothing of her kind-hearted friend in his expression as she looked up at him.

_"…the Barry from my future. He's nothing like his younger self, trust me. He's much crueler. You wouldn't like who he became anymore than I did."_

His hand came up and Caitlin had a stunned second to think, _Is he going to slap me?_

In a blink, there was a body between the two of them.

"Don't you ever raise your hand to her," Eobard said, grasping Barry's wrist, his voice a distorted growl. 

Barry yanked away. "I would _never_ hurt Caitlin," he said, leaning in to give the words more emphasis. "I just needed you to think I would, so you'd show yourself. I figured you were around here somewhere, watching."

"Not just watching, Flash. Planning."

A cool wave swept through the Cortex and Caitlin found herself unable to move. Eobard stepped away and she could see that Barry and Cisco were frozen in place as well. 

Eobard turned his other hand over, showing a familiar glittering silver orb. "I took it upon myself to improve Slow Shock's device. Though, it turns out, Mr. Ramon, you were right. The original internal components _were_ gum and a few paperclips. Slow Shock powered it with his meta ability, not with tech. I added that."

Lightning angrily zipped over Barry's entire body, his eyes sparking with it.

"Don't worry, you'll break free soon enough," Eobard told him, his tone more than a little mocking. "Just not soon enough to stop me."

But then he looked at Caitlin and his gleeful malice faded.

"You were correct, Cisco," he said, though his eyes stayed on her. "The soulmark works like an open link. Transfer between soulmates seems impossible to prevent. She never would've accepted any part of me otherwise. What she got from me was nothing good. What I got from her, however, was _only_ good."

His suit suddenly ejected out of his ring and in a blur, he had donned it. On top of it was a large, glowing device she didn't recognize centered on his chest, fastened in place at his shoulders and ribs. 

"I think she actually managed to infect me more than I did her," he said and turned towards Barry. "She made me able to feel… remorse. I know it doesn't mean anything to you -- it shouldn't, really -- but I _am_ sorry. Nora didn't deserve that. None of them did."

He turned to Cisco. "You? You're smart. You've kept me on my toes more than you could ever imagine. Fulfilling this role meant I needed to be your mentor and I thought it was going to be miserable but, honestly, I enjoyed it. If things would've been different, maybe… No, you'd probably still never like the real me."

The silver orb began to softly chime.

"I was hoping for a little more time," he said, coming back to Caitlin and cupping her face with his free hand. She could only blink, her body as unresponsive as if she'd been encased in a block of ice.

"You should've had a better soulmate," he murmured, "but I'm quite selfish enough to be glad that you were mine."

Gently, he took her left hand in his and both soulmarks began to pulse. A single emotion flooded through her as clear and unmistakable as a brilliant beam of white light. Tears sprang to her eyes. 

"And don't you forget it," he whispered, pressing his lips to her forehead.

Then he vanished in a blast of speed.

She heard an alarm go off from the monitors behind her, then the distinctive sound of a speedster ramping up his velocity. There came a distinctive concussive noise, like reality ripping.

Lightning erupted over Barry from head-to-toe and he suddenly burst free, disappearing in a heartbeat. Caitlin and Cisco were released a moment later.

She whirled, pulling up the cameras just in time to see a breach closing, then Barry arriving in the empty Pipeline. He gave a frustrated yell, then he was suddenly back in the Cortex again.

"Where did he go?" he demanded, looking at Caitlin.

"Where he always meant to go, I guess," she said numbly. "Back home."

Barry slammed his fist onto the desk hard enough it split, sending the computers crashing to the floor. For a moment, she thought shrapnel must've caught her arm because fire burned across her wrist.

But when she looked down, her soulmark was blazing like a sapphire blue flame, brighter than she'd ever seen it before. In a few moments, the glow faded along with the pain.

"Oh, no," she whispered.

Her soulmark was now black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now, I'd be lying if I didn't say that writing Barry in this chapter was **difficult**. But I've always felt that Eobard had to have a reason to hate him, so future!Barry couldn't have been as sweet a guy as our Barry is. I thought we needed to see a hint of that. However, I REALLY felt the need to take Barry out and buy him a milkshake or something after how I treated him in this one! O_O :( *pats his head* I definitely don't want to inspire any sort of anti-Barry feels, though, so I hope that I didn't. He has every reason to feel how he does about the Reverse Flash and to be angry at how it looks like Caitlin has sided with the man who killed his mom. In the end, though, I love Barry but hey, Eobard might not be your traditional hero but this IS his story and not Barry's, so what can I say? ;)
> 
> Anyway, BIG things are now in motion. Stay tuned for Chapter 9, coming this Saturday! Thanks so much for reading! ♥♥♥


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything new... is old again. Or something like that. ;) Caitlin discovers that the world has changed.
> 
> Part 1 of the finale.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Character death...kinda. If you want me to tell you about it before you read this chapter, please feel free to contact me at [Tumblr](https://ageless-aislynn.tumblr.com/) and I’ll give you more details. 
> 
> The mature warning makes one more lap around the track before we hit the checkered flag. (Well, there's a little scene in chapter 10, so I guess it'll get a "little" warning for it, too. ;) ) There is a cliffhanger. (The last one of the story, I promise! ;) )
> 
>  ~~Chapter 10 will be posted tomorrow, Sunday, so we can have a big ol' Crossing The Finish Line party over the weekend! (Okay, so maybe that'll just be me, lol! I'll save y'all a piece of cake, though, just in case! ;) )~~ I went ahead and posted Chapter 10 not long after 9. They were 1 chapter for quite a while so it felt wrong to keep them apart. ;)
> 
> Fun fact: every chapter has included the word "thousand" in it, either spoken in dialogue or as part of a descriptor. Chapter 10's "thousand(th)" will finally give you the meaning of the title. 
> 
> Thanks for reading and hope to see you after midnight tomorrow! ♥♥♥

Caitlin barely had a moment to register shock at the change to her soulmark before a wave of dizziness swept over her so powerfully she staggered. Something soft and strong wrapped around her waist, steadying her, and she looked down, trying to understand what she was looking _at_.

"Hey, Caity, you okay?"

She turned her head and a tall man with brown hair stood a few feet away. His arm was greatly elongated, stretching between the two of them. As she watched in shock, it unwound from where he'd caught her and returned back to his body, resuming a normal size and shape.

"I--" she said, looking wildly around the Cortex. Her desk was whole, the computers where they always had been, and all trace of damage was gone. "Where's Cisco? Barry? They were just here…"

"Hm, didn't see them, sorry," the man said, concern in his brown eyes. "You look like you need a drink of water or something. Hold on, be right back."

He hurried out of the Cortex before she could think of something to say. She heard him apologize as if he'd almost bumped into somebody.

"It's all right, Ralph. Just be careful, hm?"

She straightened up. She hadn't spent years at S.T.A.R. Labs to _not_ know Harrison Wells' voice.

He came into the Cortex, a phone held to his ear. He glanced at her, giving a bit of a wave, then did a double-take. "Are you all right? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Her mouth opened and closed a few times but words utterly failed her. He changed his trajectory and came towards her. "No, no, hon," he said into the phone. "I'm talking to Caitlin. She looks pale. No, I'm not working her too hard."

He gave a bit of a shrug. "Tess says I'm working you too hard. Why don't you go ahead and take the day off if you're not feeling good? There's not much planned today, anyway."

"I'll just… I'll just sit down," she said, dropping into her chair as her knees threatened to give way.

"Okay, I'll get her a glass of water," he said, then looked back at Caitlin. "If you feel faint, put your head between your knees. I'll be right back."

She watched him stride away and struggled not to hyperventilate. _That's not... It's not him. I mean, it_ is, _it's just not_ him.

Pushing up from her chair, she started walking on wobbly legs, idly noting she was wearing completely different clothes than from a few minutes ago. She didn't recognize the dark red, long-sleeved blouse and black skirt. _Where am I? What happened?_

She had just made it to the door when she heard footsteps coming down the hallway. A blond man came around the curve into view and smiled widely at her.

Her mouth fell open slightly. She'd only seen him once and only in a picture but that face had been burned immediately into her mind. "Eobard Thawne," she breathed as he approached.

"Caitlin Snow," he said, echoing her tone playfully but then registered her stunned expression. He stopped before her and lowered his voice. "Ah, you're joining the timeline here, aren't you? I wondered when that would happen. Come with me, I'll explain."

***

"And you're saying this… Time Vault has _always_ been here?" Caitlin looked around the white room, trying to wrap her mind around all of the concepts flying at her.

"Yeah, although that-- " he gestured at the door "--was hidden from the outside. It didn't have an obvious handle like it does now. Speaking of… Gideon?"

"Yes, Professor?" The calm female voice was followed by a holographic rendering of a face floating in mid-air.

"Please let me know if someone approaches the door."

"Of course, Professor."

Caitlin rubbed her temples and when she looked up again, he had taken a step towards her then apparently forced himself to stop.

"I'm sorry this is so much to take in at one time," he said. "I was hoping that the new memories would integrate for you right away. How can I help?"

"Just… tell me what happened. Barry was so angry, you'd used Slow Shock's orb to freeze us. You left. I assumed you went home. But you didn't, did you? You went _back_?"

A slight smile tugged at his mouth.

His mouth. A set of disjointed images and sounds sparked through her mind. 

_Harrison Wells, stepping to one side to reveal a blond man, saying, "I'd like you to meet Professor Thawne. You two will be working pretty closely together."_

_"It's nice to meet you, Professor," she heard herself say and when she shook his hand, it felt like a painless little static shock went through her._

_"Please, call me Eobard," he invited._

_She canted her head slightly. "That's an interesting name."_

_"Glad you think so." His smile made his blue eyes sparkle._

The memory released her.

"I went back," he confirmed. "I knew where I'd be, of course, I just had to get there in time to set a trap. I knew me: somebody wearing Harrison Wells' face who clearly wasn't Harrison Wells would get my attention but it wasn't going to be enough. I couldn't just _talk_ myself into anything. I had to know. I had to _remember_."

"You told me you had tech that let you take memories as well as someone's appearance," she said slowly, trying to piece it all together.

He leaned his shoulder against the wall and, even though his build was stockier, she _knew_ that posture as he crossed his arms. He nodded. "It wasn't easy to wrestle myself into the tech, let me tell you."

"You said the tech killed the original host. If you… he… was the host…?"

His smile grew sadder. "Caitlin, he knew that was a one-way trip for him. If he was successful and got me to change my mind, to not take Harrison's life, to stop my vendetta against Barry, then that wrote him out of the timeline. He wouldn't exist as you knew him anymore. That's why it was vital to him not just to convince me to change plans; he wanted me to remember everything. The good, the bad and the awful, but most importantly, _you_. He didn't want a single memory of you to be lost."

She couldn't help it, a sob caught in her throat and she pressed a hand to her mouth. He took another step forward then halted again.

"Can I touch you?" he asked, sounding a little desperate. "I don't want to scare you but this is killing me to just keep standing here when you're so obviously confused and in pain."

She nodded and he came to her, slowly and gently pulling her into an embrace. This body was a stranger to her but there was something familiar there as well, something that made her put her arms around him and hold on.

"If you took his memories, why didn't you get his appearance?" she asked. "I thought that was how the tech worked?"

"That appearance never belonged to me. This is always who I was beneath the Harrison Wells exterior."

Another memory surfaced.

"You took me out for pizza on our first date," she blurted out.

"I did," he said, amused. "I thought that was nicer than making your kitchen smell like burned lasagna again."

The dual memories warred for a moment in her mind, then settled beside each other. Both were real. Both were valid. But then the newer one expanded.

_"I had a nice time tonight," she was telling him just inside her front door -- she didn't recognize any part of the interior but, regardless, knew it was her apartment._

_"So did I," he said. "You know, end of the first date and all, would it be all right if I--?"_

_He gave a bit of a gesture between their mouths and she smiled._

_"I think I'd like that," she said, putting her hands on his shoulders as he leaned down and pressed a relatively chaste kiss to her lips._

_Something unlocked within her. She immediately deepened the kiss, her hands going into his hair._

_He sighed her name like she'd given him the permission he'd been waiting for for years._

Memories began stuttering over themselves like a thousand shards of glass raining down in flashes and sparks:

_Her back was against the door, her legs around his waist, her blouse half-off, his belt buckle accidentally snagged on her skirt._

_The belt was gone and so was her skirt and blouse. The two of them were now sprawled gracelessly onto the couch. His shirt was off and she could feel she'd lost one of her high heels while the other dangled from her toes._

_She was kissing him like he was her only source of air. His hand was between her legs, sliding over the silk of her panties._

_"That's… that's good," she mumbled against his mouth, "but could we just…?"_

_That made him chuckle for some reason. "Whatever you want, sweetheart," he murmured back._

_They were on her bed, still sprawled but at least with more room to maneuver. All clothing was long gone._

_He pushed into her at exactly the right angle to make her give a high-pitched gasp. There was a disorientating moment when she realized she expected him to feel different -- size, shape, something -- but then he flexed his hips and she forgot all about that._

_They moved together like long-partnered dancers, easy and sure, as if they'd been lovers for months. He knew exactly when to slow down, when to speed up, when to strengthen his thrusts to get her eyes practically rolling back in her head. She somehow knew when to tighten her fingers in his hair, tugging just hard enough, at just the precise moment to make him half-shout nonsense._

_When she came, she moaned his name. His rhythm vanished and a slight buzz of vibration skirted through his body where he'd lost a bit of control over his speedster abilities. He emptied into her, his head briefly sagging to her shoulder, and he turned his face so he could kiss her neck._

_Once he'd disposed of the condom and returned to the bed, she'd automatically moved to curl up next to him, her head on his chest. Belatedly, she thought to ask, "Is this okay?"_

_"This is perfect," he said into her hair. "Absolutely perfect."_

Caitlin jolted back to herself with a sharp inhale, looking up at him in the here and now. "On the first date? I never do that on the first date!"

"Oh, Cait," he said, clearly fighting back a laugh at her scandalized tone.

"Well, I guess I did on the _first_ first date, too, didn't I? Was that even a date, though?"

"Well," he said, brushing a stray lock of hair back from her face, "you tasered me, tried to freeze me with a souped-up fire extinguisher, kneed me in the groin, broke bones in my feet multiple times _and_ I think you were ready to knife me if I'd given you the chance. For a villain, that was pretty much the ideal first date."

She grinned through all of that but it faded at the end. "And are you still? A villain, that is?"

"No," he said softly. "Not like I was. I'm not perfect, of course. I still have a bad habit of turning into a toddler when something makes me mad but… I meant what I said back then. I suppose every time the soulmarks were opened, there was an exchange of energy. You gave me the ability to regret what I'd done. That regret gave me the impetus to change."

As soon as he'd reminded her, she looked at her wrist. "Oh, my soulmark turned black!" She let go of him in order to tug at her sleeve but the cuff was too tight to pull back.

"Snug tailoring," he murmured, turning her wrist over and undoing the tiny button there. "You need to remember, though, that--"

But she'd already yanked the cuff back to reveal… bare skin. She immediately grabbed his arm and turned his wrist over. His soulmark was there but was black.

He covered her hand with his. "Alicia Bennington," he said solemnly.

"I'm not your soulmate?" she asked in distress. "That was the cost of changing the past?"

"There were quite a few costs," he admitted. "Some of them I'm still discovering, actually. This was a _major_ change that was made to the timeline."

He squeezed her fingers gently, trying to soften the blow. "Cait, there _aren't_ soulmarks anymore. There's no such thing as soulmates in this world."


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What is a soulmate worth in a world where there is no such thing?
> 
> Part 2 of the finale.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for a tiny little mature scene (I probably don't even need to warn for it if you've gotten this far but, hey, I wanted to be thorough). And yay, we finally know what the title was all about, lol! ;)
> 
> Also, yes, I'm posting this early. These 2 chapters were 1 for a long time and it just feels like they need to go together. So, without further ado, we've come to the finish line! ;)
> 
> I really want to thank everyone who's taken the time to read and especially to leave me a comment. That has helped me SO much, I can't even tell you. Thank you for going on this journey with me. I haven't managed to do a multi-chaptered in **12 years** so it was exciting to get the chance to follow this one all the way through!
> 
> Thanks again! ♥♥♥

_No soulmates._

His words echoed through her mind. 

"What do people think this is, then?" she asked, her voice high and breathy as she indicated the black lines on his wrist.

"Just some meaningless, drunken tattoo I got in Vegas," he said with half a shrug.

Caitlin's ears began to ring. He immediately steered her to the nearest chair and waited as she worked it through, his hand on her shoulder in silent support.

She finally looked up at him. "And you still wanted me back? Why?"

He exhaled as if she'd punched him in the gut. "Why did I--? A better question is why did _you_? I had to live all of these years until I could meet you again. I missed you every day. At first, I didn't even know if you were alive in this timeline or if you'd find somebody else before I had the chance to meet you."

He knelt next to her. "I watched you from a distance while I waited. I tried not to make it creepy."

She gave a ghost of a smile at that, just like he'd clearly intended.

"Mostly, I stayed away," he went on. "I confess, though, when it got bad, I'd pass you on the street, just to be near you for a moment but I didn't interfere in your life. I waited to meet you officially when Harrison offered you a job at S.T.A.R. Labs. I didn't know how long to wait to ask you out or whether it would go anywhere for you. You have no idea how hard it was not to tell you I loved you that first night. From your point of view, we'd only been colleagues for a short while. From mine, I'd loved you for ages."

Hearing him say that without any reservation surprised her. She looked down at her left wrist again but this time moved past the missing soulmark to look at her hand. At her finger adorned with a delicate pale gold band set with a diamond that was ringed in brilliant sapphires.

When she turned to him, silently questioning, he held up his own hand, showing a matching band also studded with sapphires. "We had our third anniversary last month," he said. "Things moved more quickly in this timeline. S.T.A.R. Labs, the particle accelerator, metas, everything occurred quite a few years earlier this time around."

Memories flashed in rapid succession: _Cisco toasting her during her bachelorette party, herself looking down the aisle to see Eobard, his face wreathed in wonder, waiting for her at the other end, their friends cheering as they kissed at the end of their vows, throwing her bouquet and their friends cheering again as Iris caught it and Barry turned three shades of red even as he broadly smiled._

"Oh," she breathed.

"You _are_ my soulmate," he murmured. "I don't need a soulmark to tell me that. And yeah, maybe some of the extras from that were fun, but let me tell you, you're still a champion with your feet under a table whenever you want to be."

His unrepentant grin made her grin in return and she tsked teasingly at him, then another memory flashed.

_"You're awfully good with that cold, Ms. Frost," he gasped as she licked a stripe across his chest._

_"And most girl's would need an ice cube in their mouth," she purred, her fingertips shimmering as she dragged them along his ribs. Once she'd discovered how responsive he was to her powers, she'd worked hard to perfect her control to the point that she could tease any part of him without harm._

She shook herself briefly. "Am I a meta?"

"You are now, yes. You go by Frost."

"And you're…" she trailed off, feeling like the name was _right there_. "Professor Zoom?"

His mouth twisted wryly. "Blame Cisco for that one. You ought to have heard what all I vetoed before we settled on _that._ There's no Reverse Flash, anymore."

An image came to mind of Cisco wearing an unfamiliar outfit with glasses, a breach opening beyond his raised hands. "And he's… He's a meta, too? His name is… Ugh, I can almost say it…"

"Vibe," he offered. 

"Yes, he's Vibe!" She gave a little triumphant fist-pump, then exhaled heavily. "There's so much that's changed. How am I ever going to learn it all again?"

"Give yourself time, sweetheart. It'll come back," he said, stroking her hair. Then the corner of his mouth twitched, like he was trying to restrain a full blown smile. "Oh but I should tell you that you might have a prospective intern in a few years. Alicia Bennington's showing quite an aptitude for science."

Her eyes went wide and she reached out to grip the front of his white dress shirt. "She's back? She's okay? And the others? Marcia and Charlie?"

"All flourishing. All possibly going to be recipients of anonymous scholarships when they graduate." Now he let the smile through, his eyes alight at her unrestrained happiness. 

Another memory:

_"So, I keep thinking we're going to hear some news about a little speedster or a little ice princess any day now…" Joe West said oh-so-conversationally from across the large dinner table._

_His wife Cecile swatted his arm, admonishing, "Hey, don't rush them."_

_"I was just saying," he defended with a smile._

The table was set with obvious holiday trappings. Thanksgiving? Yes, that seemed right.

 _"Well, I hope you know that,_ whenever it happens, _" Cisco said from a few seats down, "I'm awesome uncle material."_

_"Wait a minute," Ralph interjected from across from him, "I want to be the awesome uncle!"_

_"Line forms behind me, Ralphie-boy," Cisco said firmly, "and you can be the next-most-awesome uncle. I'm numero uno awesome uncle around here."_

_Caitlin couldn't help but laugh as they bickered good-naturedly. She looked around the table, at their friends talking over each other, passing the dishes of food back and forth. She looked at Eobard at her side, grinning at something Cisco had told him, and she was struck with a profound sense of belonging._

My family, _she thought and when Eobard looked at her, she reached over and squeezed his hand. He brought it to his mouth and kissed her fingers, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners as he smiled._

The memory released her.

"We have a good life, don't we?" she asked.

He nodded. "I think so. Better than I deserve."

"No, don't say that," she murmured. "It must've been hard for you, all these years with me not remembering anything from before."

"Sometimes," he admitted. "But you were still you. Still my Caitlin. That's always been good enough for me. The important thing is that we're together. That's why I did this. Not just to right my wrongs, but to give us a chance to have a life that didn't involve being on the run."

"Barry Allen is approaching the door, Professor," Gideon suddenly interjected.

"Thank you, Gideon," he said and stood. Caitlin got to her feet too quickly and he wrapped his arms around her, steadying her against him.

There was a brief knock and then the door opened. "Hey, everything okay?" Barry asked.

Images of her friend's face twisted in anger, his hand raised as if to strike, flashed through her mind, completely at odds with his current concerned expression.

"Yeah, Caitlin's just not feeling too good right now," Eobard said, rubbing her back as she rested her head against the solid expanse of his chest. "I think we're going to head on home. Would you mind letting Harrison know?"

"Of course," Barry said solicitously. "I just saw him and Ralph wandering around the Cortex and they were both carrying glasses of water. It was a little weird."

He started to close the door, then pushed it back again. "Oh, feel better, Cait, okay? I mean, you guys have got to be at the barbecue tomorrow. You know my mom's counting on you bringing your famous potato salad, Eo."

"Wouldn't miss it for the world," he promised.

"And don't forget. We've _got_ to race to settle for once and for all who gets to be called the World's Fastest Man."

Caitlin went still. Beneath her ear, she heard his heart rate pick up. But then he just chuckled.

"You can have that one, Barry," he said. "The only title I need is Mr. Caitlin Snow."

"Aw, man," Barry scoffed fondly, smiling broadly as he withdrew, shutting the door behind himself.

She arched back slightly in the circle of Eobard's arms, looking up at him, and he winked at her. 

She moved her hands up to cup his face, letting her fingers smooth over the familiar/unfamiliar lines and curves and edges.

"Think you can get used to this face?" he asked quietly.

"For a long time, you didn't even _have_ one as far as I was concerned," she said. For a moment, she just closed her eyes and breathed.

Where she used to have the soulmark to guide her, now there was only silence. 

_He could've gone back home. He could've left Nora and the Wells and so many others dead but he didn't. He took the chance without knowing what all it would cost him. He did it… for me._

When she looked at him again, she realized she didn't need the soulmark after all. It was all there in his eyes.

"Yeah, this is a good face," she said softly. "I can definitely get used to it."

She went up on her toes a little, tugging him down, and then she kissed him for the thousandth time.

And the first.


End file.
